


the bird may die

by venusispanicking



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Remus Lupin Raises Harry Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin Raise Harry Potter, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:01:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29485698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venusispanicking/pseuds/venusispanicking
Summary: Remus looks at Harry once again.Maybe, he thinks, and he knows it’s absurd and impossible, but he still thinks that maybetheysent him to Harry, and they sent Harry to him after all those years he spent alone. Perhaps to commemorate what they have lost together and cry and mourn and suffer.Perhaps, they thought it is high time that Remus smiles again, sincerely, like the days in Hogwarts. Like he is a human again, not just a hollow bag of bones. Perhaps they think he should stop just existing, and live again. Perhaps.*Voldemort is defeated, the war is over, but Remus can't pull himself together until suddenly there is a little boy in his arms, crying and waiting for him to wipe his tears away.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 32
Kudos: 67





	1. chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Implied substance use, implied child neglect, mention of death (all quite briefly), and depressive thoughts

It’s been three years since Remus stopped suffering. Visibly, at least. After seeing his shrill face bunch up as his skin trembled with sobs, he realized how disgusting the man in the mirror looked. No, it wasn’t him. It was just a hollow shell, a ghost of a man who once lived, but it wasn’t him. Still, the fear of seeing such desperation and agony was so debilitating that he simply decided to stop suffering.

It had been weirdly easy, actually, he had realized after a few months. With potions, he gulped down and all those cheap Muggle wines, the crush of white little sweets in his palm and dust in his eyes, it was weirdly easy. As fake plastic euphoria washed over him he could almost, almost forget the throbbing and open wound in his life. Yet still, at some point, even he was almost deceived into thinking he wasn’t suffering. Almost.

However, in that exact moment, as he barely opens the door and hears the scared whimpers of the young child once again, he thinks he is going to break down. In his usual moments of despair, he would tell himself lies about how it couldn’t have been worse, and better, he would believe it. But now, he is sure, he is sure that this is his personal hell. These walls and these grounds, ugly brown and peeling down on him, crumbling upon him like sheets of paper, this ugly, this ugly goddamn house is going to fall down on his tiny neck and end his tiny little painful life. But no, he is too lucky to die so peacefully.

He slides down on the door. The floor is cold, he can feel the tiny splinters on the door scratching his back through his thin shirt. He likes the cold though, it makes him feel alive and reminds him of how he is alive, while no-fucking-body is, and that’s exactly why he needs to stay alive. For little Harry. Little Harry, who is so scared, so innocently terrified of the entire world that Remus cannot open the door without making him silently sob in horror. Little Harry, who has no one but him, no one to care about him but fucking Remus Lupin.

He blinks, and he finds himself lying on the floor. He looks through the door and there he is, under the bed. He feels like he is closing on a wild animal, so wild yet so scared, so fragile. He won’t admit it, but his eyes are watering. No, he is not suffering. Weirdly, he never thought these days would come again, these are not tears of agony. They are certainly not tears of joy, but they still have a happy tune to them. Happy as in seeing the flowers planted in your mother’s grave grow, and happy as in surviving a war, surviving but alone, alone, alone. Still, those melancholy tears are the best he had in years. There, just under the bed is the living proof that Remus Lupin was once a teen with dreams and friends and a life, something more than a broken shell and old scars. When the little child’s lips start trembling, not to form a sob but a word, Remus thinks he will now shed tears of joy.

“Where are we?” he says very quietly. His voice has a soft edge, a dumb melody only children have. Remus actually sheds a tear and something grand, good and bad, and an avalanche unlocks in his chest. “Hi Harry,” he says silently, not as Remus-the-shell but as the young boy who held his friend’s hand as he cried because he just became a father. Those three silent words remind him why he illegally started looking for Harry in the first place and why he watched those Muggles’ house from strained windows and followed them to the market. Why he stormed Dumbledore’s office to ask, to violently sob and scream and ask, how could you do this to him? Can’t you see what they are? He did, actually. But it was too late.

“I am sorry that we scared you,” he says, “you are at my house.”

“I am sorry,” Harry says after a while. He sounds louder now, just as loud as a kitten.

“No need to be sorry,” Remus replies. He is overwhelmed with the intensity of the love he feels for this tiny tiny human, who is scared of looking him in the eye. “Would you like to come out so we can talk?”

Harry says nothing, just slightly crawls out. “I won’t come near you if you don’t want to,” Remus adds. They sit there and crawl towards each other for a few hours, a few random words spoken every once in a while. At one point Remus Accio’s some tea and biscuits. Harry is apprehensive first, he doesn’t even look at the plate. 

When they are close enough that there is only the tray of food between them, Remus slightly nudges the plate in his direction. “Don’t you like biscuits, Harry?” he asks. He could bring sandwiches too, he thinks. He is a shit cook, but he would try. He could do eggs and pasta and fry some sausage or something. He would kidnap a chef and make him cook if it meant Harry speaking with him.

Harry seems like he is having a hard time understanding him. “No biscuits,” he says finally. “I cried.”

It takes a few seconds for Remus to understand the correlation, and when he does, he once again feels like he is losing control. Little tiny sweet Harry in front of him afraid to eat a biscuit. How could he let this happen? He is their son. He owed it to them. How could he let this happen? How could he ruin his life freely for years while those Muggles did Merlin knows what to him? How could Dumbledore let this happen, so confidently and so calmly?

“It’s okay to cry when you’re sad,” he says soothingly. “You can have a biscuit.” He is glad that Harry is not old enough to understand the difference between an offer and a plead because he is about to get down on his knees and plead with this little child to please, please, fuck, please have a biscuit. Surprisingly, Harry does have one. Then breaks it into two with his trembling hands, and gives one half to Remus. As their hands brush together, he gives Remus the tiniest similes. Remus sheds another tear. This is how their friendship starts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder if anyone will ever see this, but if you do, hello! It's my first time writing fan fiction and also my first time writing fiction in English, so please bear with my incoherency. Please don't hesitate to ask anything or give feedback in the comments! I hope to update weekly and (hopefully) the dark tone will slowly shift. 
> 
> ps. the name is a reference to a Forough Farrokhzad poem


	2. chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: depressive thoughts, child abuse, alcohol use, mention of the deceased, grieving

__

_Perhaps life is the lighting of a cigarette  
Between the narcotic repose of two lovemakings  
Or the puzzled passage of a passerby  
Tipping his hat  
Saying good morning to another passerby with a vacant smile _

____

____

__

__

**-Forough Farrokhzad, _Reborn ___ ******

********

********

__*_ _

__On their first night together, Harry finally falls asleep clutching a soft red and gold lion between his arms. Remus had to talk for about twenty minutes and then magically replicate the toy to cuddle himself to convince the boy that it was harmless, it was his, and that he could play with it._ _

__Before that, he made some beans on toast. The toast was slightly burnt as usual, and he was panicking when Harry didn’t touch anything on his plate. He didn’t know how to cook, he didn’t know how to feed a child. He made a killer firewhiskey cocktail that would knock Hagrid down with a single glass but he didn’t know how to cook. “Aren’t you hungry, Harry?” he pleaded silently._ _

__There was no way that was the case. It had been almost twelve hours since they came, and the sun was setting down. The kid had to be starving. After a while of complete silence, instead of answering, the child just asked, “Can I eat this?”_ _

__He was glad hearts didn’t make a sound when they shattered because he thought his heart was crumbling, crumbling like a thousand plates falling into the ground and shattering one by one, so grand and so loud that his ears were throbbing with pressure. “You can eat anything that’s on the table, kitchen, or fridge. If you want anything else, I can go get it for you.”_ _

__He looked so aghast, so utterly shocked at the idea. “I can open the fridge,” he said, more like a question._ _

__“You can use anything in this house and anything else that you want,” Remus replied. Then, he took him to the fridge and asked him to choose something. “Anything?” the child asked. He assured him, absolutely anything you want._ _

__Still, as he saw the stacked fridge, he hesitated to take anything. With Remus’s directions, he got a chocolate frog. He ate his beans warily and took a bite of his frog. Then, re-wrapped it and put it back on the table. Trying to understand what his little mind was afraid of now Remus said, “You can eat it, Harry. There are many more in the fridge.”_ _

__He refused the offer but didn’t disagree as Remus set it on his bedside table along with a glass of water. He looked so tiny in the huge bed, lost between all the quilts and pillows and duvet. He reassured the little boy that he would be there in the morning and that he was never going back to Dursley’s (“Really?” he asked, and Remus saw him grin toothily for the first time) and he finally fell asleep._ _

__That’s why Remus is squeezed into the old smelly couch, not that it’s a problem. He would sleep in a nailed coffin to be close to the boy. He needs to think, think of the next step. Think of what he will do when Harry wakes up and realizes his whole life is going to change. He has to think of what he will say to him when he asks why he disappears once a month. He has to find someone to care for him for those days but for now, with guilt gnawing inside him, he could only think of the Dursleys._ _

__He does not exactly remember the moment he decided to find Harry. It was one of those drunk revelations that come when you are so insanely intoxicated that existence sounds like a great plan. Someone was laying on his thighs, which wasn’t necessarily horrible but the random head of black curls looked so much like someone he desperately tried to forget that his chest ached. He barely remembers pushing the head aside and getting up, then there is a black hole from when he got up to when he found himself in Hagrid’s door, somewhat sobered._ _

__He has never had a sweet mouth. He was painfully shy and preserved to lure people into liking him, unlike Sirius or James. Not that he ever needed any new people when he had his friends, he was perfectly content with his scarce words and shy smiles. He always silently yearned for that confident gaze and straight shoulders, the way young children look up to a parent. He thought of it on many random nights. Luckily, on those nights, he also figured how enough alcohol could make people forget their entire personalities._ _

__It hurt to think of them in so much detail, hell, it was torturous to even think of his name, yet he managed to become him too well. As he entered the small hut, he was walking and talking copy of Sirius Black, with his attitude and black jeans and lopsided smile. He smiled confidently at Hagrid’s confused face, talked swiftly with a soft allure._ _

__After two glasses of something he can’t even remember, Hagrid babbled out the street’s name, tears in his eyes. He could sense the man’s longing for a child he had almost never met._ _

__“He is a good fella, that kid,” he said as he sniffed loudly before falling asleep on the armchair._ _

__Remus would have gone to Privet Drive that night but after vomiting in Hagrid’s bushes for a few hours, he decided to wait for a little._ _

__His selfish little mind would have never guessed what that night brought him. He was just so alienated, so aimless in life he needed something to hold onto._ _

__He thought it would be a good idea to find Harry, find him and look at him and buy him toys and books and things. Take him to the park once a month. Tell him stories of the Marauders. He thought it would give him a reason to actually work, a reason to get up on a random Sunday morning, and a reason to wash the dust off of his emotions._ _

__In a way, he wanted to prove to himself that he could love again, someone or something. He wanted to prove to himself that he could be happy again, that he could smile and laugh and enjoy the sunlight grazing his face in the morning and not be disappointed to have woken up._ _

__That’s why he sneaked behind Petunia Dursley’s annoyingly well-kept bushes and started watching the Dursleys. It was mesmerizing in the worst way possible, he thought. He hoped to see how happy Harry was, how happy and content and joyous he was so that he could see he had no role in this life._ _

__He didn’t expect a five-year-old to be carrying plates to the sink and doing the dishes until midnight, so tired and so hungry he could barely stand. He did not expect the cookie in his pocket to get him a beating. The cookie he magically put so the boy could have something to eat._ _

__He was so unpleasantly surprised at how much you could peek into someone’s life by looking at their back window. The dim lightning always highlighted the kitchen, which is where the boy usually was doing one chore or another. He could see the silhouettes of the living room furniture, white light coming from a squeaky telly and another child._ _

__He didn’t resemble Harry, but he looked like he was just as ordinary as the other twenty kids next door. At least that’s what Remus thought, how bloody idiotic. He didn’t realize how meaty little hands could smack on flesh so loud and so cruel. He had no expectations nor hopes about Mr. or Mrs. Dursley, yet he was surprised to see how atrocious and barbaric a five-year-old could be._ _

__He only stopped watching when he realized he had to get out of this trance and he had to stop them, and he had to do it now. When he hurried off, running like he hasn’t done in years, he never expected the thing he would see when he came back._ _

__His simple mind could not comprehend what was going on, there were only commands. Find Harry. He is hurt. Get help. Run. Find Dumbledore. Get help. Come back._ _

__Dumbledore had seemed only very slightly upset by the news which gave Remus the expression that it wasn’t the news that made him sad, but rather that it was known by Remus._ _

__He wasn’t convinced to wreak that house down and curse those Muggles, but he said he would inspect them. Surely he didn’t want the child to get hurt, but Remus could only guess what was going on in his sly mind. After all, they were all accustomed to the different levels of getting hurt. At least he was safe with the Dursleys, blood magic protecting him. At least he was alive._ _

__However, they were also accustomed to how much it ached to just exist, breathing solely for the purpose of it, opening your eyes simply because you have to and going to bed at night with shards cutting your weak heart and realizing how hard it has become to endure life and Remus would not let Harry crumble apart like that._ _

__This was when Remus started plotting how he could kidnap Harry, which was a horrible idea, but he would have done it. He didn’t really know how, and what he would do after, but deep down he just knew._ _

__However, the image that welcomed them as they apparated to Privet Drive Number 4, of tiny Harry crouched next to bushes in the freezing cold with only an ill-fitted shirt and bottoms on, brought even Dumbledore to his senses. The boy looked so delicate, so feeble and so innocent with his skin getting paler and paler and his hand turning a purple it made Remus gasp._ _

__The boy was so cold and trembling so hard he thought he had lost him. He thought he had lost him, lost this little boy who he hasn’t seen since he was an infant, this boy who suddenly looked so frail and so hurt, the boy he hasn’t even met yet. He failed once again and lost someone else._ _

__He couldn’t fathom why that tiny child was sleeping outside in the freezing weather. He didn’t even have socks on, he thought crudely. Bloody socks. Cold tiny feet, looking like they were going to break if he dared to touch. He couldn’t think of a Charm to fix him, a spell to warm him only focusing on the alarm bells going on in his mind, ringing and ringing and waking every thought up, turning the hell of his mind into a circus._ _

__He convinced himself that that was not Harry Potter’s body, but rather his corpse. As the thought sent him spiraling to the ground, Dumbledore apparated both of them to his Hogwarts chambers. He barely remembers the feeling of the matted carpet under his fingers. He was just looking at Harry, who was levitated to the couch, who looked so sad and broken and like them._ _

__He once again felt young and naive, remembering the days of real Remus where he lived and suffered, and moments where he heard Edgar Bones died and Benjy died and Meadowes died. He remembered how he would put his hands on the old table and feel the little splinters on his hands, like the matted carpet, and how it would remind him that he was alive. They were gone, but he was alive._ _

__At that moment, Harry woke up in confusion and pain and did not stop crying in fear until Poppy Pomfrey forced a drop of Sleeping Draught down his throat. Remus watched people from the Order come and go, checking on the kid, checking on himself._ _

__“I will keep him,” he said when they asked and asked and asked what was going to happen now. “I will keep him.” He couldn’t dare look people in the face as he told them he would keep him, as if talking about a puppy. He couldn’t dare look them in the eyes and see the immense pity and apprehension. He couldn’t dare see how their eyes would tell him that he wasn’t enough, that he wouldn’t succeed and make the boy more miserable than he was ever before._ _

__He didn’t say this as he thought he was the most loving, caring paternal figure there was, but only because he could never, never let anyone hurt him again and he trusted no one. Suddenly he understood why Moody screamed “Constant Vigilance!” to their faces so vehemently and why everyone was so keen on Fidelius charms._ _

__He was wary of anyone and everyone, Arthur Weasley who was on the brink of tears as he lightly patted the sleeping boy, reminded of his own Ron and Pomfrey who was examining the child. She said something about nurturing potions to which Dumbledore replied with something about Severus, which made Remus’s back straighter and eyes wider._ _

__As dawn hit the blue skies they were escorted to a safe house. Remus scribbled a note for his Muggle employer about a family emergency. Now thinking, he isn’t really sure if that was necessary since he doesn’t think he will ever be able to go back to his job at the tiny bookshop, but he is still glad that he wrote to Ira, his golden heart would otherwise worry too much about poor Remus._ _

__He weirdly misses the days in the bookshop even if they are only a few days away, so freshly gone. He doesn’t exactly love his job, people are rude and he has to talk and talk and talk all day, but he would take a curse for Ira._ _

__He is the first employer to accept that he will be missing a day of work every month without much interrogation. Remus told him something about epilepsy treatment, not that he had any idea what it was, but Ira didn’t ask much more anyway. He brought him cookies and leftover roast and gave him old books and old clothes._ _

__He is the one who introduced him to Rumi and Sappho and Sylvia Plath, gave him the Complete Anthology of Dickinson - and that little book about Forough Farroukhzad. He is a nice man, completely and utterly nice. He would like Harry, he thinks. Harry is weirdly the wisest little kid he has ever met._ _

__He is not sure of what his role should be in the boy’s life, it feels like a crime to think of himself as filling the hole James and Lily’s absence created. It makes his tongue go limp in his mouth, suffocating him to think he would be a fraction of what James was like as a father._ _

__He was so perfect, so effortlessly and so insanely perfect. If he wanted to be a father, he could. If he wanted to be an Auror or a Healer or a Quidditch Player, he could._ _

__Unlike Remus, who struggled to be anything but fire, consuming and ruining and destroying and burning along with everything. He was the lighter that started the fire, the house that burned down and he was the children inside, he was the walls peeling and candles melting down._ _

__But right now, he is in the house with the children and is supposed to be the one that stops the fire though no one ever taught him how to extinguish it. He only knows to spread and hurt, himself more than anyone, and he was hardly ever taught healing his own scars._ _

__In moments like this, he fills with inexplicable anguish thinking about his old life. How he was finally starting to learn how to stop little fires before they spread._ _

__How Lily would hold his hand and caress his hair as he rolled in his bed with pain the day after his change. How they taught him it’s okay to not be okay and taught him that it was okay to fall and that they would be there and hold his hand and get him on his feet, then all left him rotting in the dark._ _

__How they taught him how to love and left him with no one to love._ _

__Maybe, he thinks, and he knows it’s absurd and impossible, but he still thinks that maybe they sent him to Harry, and they sent Harry to him. Not to fix each other, that would be too much, but perhaps to hold onto each other as they stumbled. Perhaps to commemorate what they have lost together and cry and mourn and suffer. Perhaps, most importantly, they thought it is high time that Remus smiles again, sincerely, like the days in Hogwarts. Like he is a human again, not just a hollow bag of bones. Perhaps they think he should stop just existing, and live again. Perhaps._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are again, hello! I can't believe how writing this became a huge part of my life so quickly. Thank you so much for your kind words on the last chapter and please feel free to comment on anything you liked/didn't like/would like to see in the upcoming chapters.


	3. chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: substance (alcohol) abuse, implied/referenced child abuse, mention of the deceased/dead

_So needless to say  
I'm odds and ends  
I'll be stumbling away  
Slowly learning that life is okay ___

__A-Ha, _Take on Me _____

____*_ _ _ _

____Remus wakes up to the sound of a quiet whimpering. Disoriented, he looks around, wand in his hand, trying to remember where he is._ _ _ _

____My name is Remus Lupin, he tells himself. This is an Order safe house. I am safe. The war is over, he says, even though his body refuses to believe it. His hands are shaky and his heart racing, then he hears another whimper and starts running down the corridor to Harry’s room._ _ _ _

____For a second, he wholeheartedly forgets the kid. For the tiniest second, he thinks it is only a fever dream. He forgets that there is this tiny human depending on him to soothe him after a bad night. That’s why his steps are so sudden and startled, and his brain is so alarmed._ _ _ _

____He thinks about everything that could have happened to make the boy cry ranging from Death Eaters to ghosts to wolves on his way to the boy’s room. The last one is a little bit personal, he tends to blame everything on those beasts. It is fairly easy considering he is one of them, and the guilt makes him feel alive and properly hated, just as he deserves._ _ _ _

____He enters the room in a rush and sends the door flying, hitting the wall with so much force it makes him flinch and makes Harry hide under the duvets, crying louder than before._ _ _ _

____He warily tucks his wand to his pajama’s waistband and holds his hands in the air. “I am sorry I scared you,” he says out of breath. Harry slightly takes his head out of the covers. “I was afraid you hurt yourself.”_ _ _ _

____Harry very slowly gets out, his face shiny and red with tears. His eyes, doe-like and red and watery, look so much like Lily’s, not just the shiny emerald green but the way they look at Remus with fear and sympathy and care._ _ _ _

____“Are you okay?” asks the man._ _ _ _

____The boy gives a curt nod. “I had a bad dream,” he says silently. Then he apologizes, with his shaky voice. Remus gently walks to the bed and sits on the opposite end. His hands are clenched between his thighs to keep the boy from seeing them shake so violently._ _ _ _

____He has to do something, anything, but he is just as lost as the little boy and just as confused. He doesn’t know how to do this thing, how to care for this child. He doesn’t know what he needs to do to make tears and bad dreams go away and he doesn’t know how to put on a reassuring smile._ _ _ _

____He feels entirely and perfectly useless._ _ _ _

____He looks at the boy who is still trembling, and defeatedly asks, “Are you cold?” when there is nothing else to say._ _ _ _

____Harry shakes his head and wipes another line of tears away. “I was cold,” he whimpers. He is looking at his hand, which Remus realized he does when he is anxious or scared._ _ _ _

____As the morning fog clears, the young man understands what the boy means: he was cold last night when they left him outside._ _ _ _

____It feels as if a snake wraps around his cold dead heart and squeezes until it bursts, little pieces of ash and stone everywhere. He feels each and every particle dig into his soul, yet he bites his lips and tries to cover his tormented face._ _ _ _

____Harry refused to speak about that night when Remus asked him earlier that day and the man didn’t insist. Now, however, feels like a good time to speak. He tries to keep his voice calm, not too interrogating or threatening. “Why were you outside last night, Harry?”_ _ _ _

____The boy shakes his head fiercely and clutches his lion closer to his chest, “I didn’t do anything.”_ _ _ _

____“I never thought you did anything bad,” Remus replies, and every single word that leaves his mouth hurts, hurts his lips and his tongue, leaves a burning feeling in his throat, and fills him with intense desperation._ _ _ _

____He needs someone here, someone to hold his hand and tell him that it’s okay, it’s okay that Harry is sad and that kids get sad and it will be okay. Someone needs to tell him that this kid doesn’t have a hole in his chest like him, a wound that will never heal, and a scar impossible to fix._ _ _ _

____Someone needs to stroke his hair, as he strokes Harry’s and mutter words of endearment. He needs someone, just anyone to be there for him for once._ _ _ _

____He wants James and Lily and Sirius and Peter, and he wants his father even if he could never hug him without crying and he wants his mother despite her reluctant fingers barely touching his skin._ _ _ _

____He wants Dumbledore to be there, not to just exist but to help him, to hold his hands and get him out of this well that he’s been stuck for so long. He wants someone to realize that he forgot what sunlight feels like on his skin and how his flesh became paper-thin so that they would see what a monster he is and help him._ _ _ _

____He doesn’t know the right words to soothe a kid or the kind ones, he was never told beautiful fairytales and forgot all the stories James talked about. He doesn’t know what makes a child happy, what makes a child hurt less after such a short and tragic life._ _ _ _

____“It just,” Harry mutters and pauses with frustration as if he can’t find the right words. Then, he shakes his arms around and silently says, “Poof.”_ _ _ _

____“Did you make something explode?”_ _ _ _

____“I didn’t,” he murmured, “I swear.”_ _ _ _

____“I believe you,” he says, just hoping that’s enough. “Can you tell me what happened?”_ _ _ _

____The boy’s voice is barely audible. “I was playing with Dudley’s toys, and he-” a sob breaks his words “he hit me.”_ _ _ _

____Remus slides himself on the bed and gets closer to the crying child. He mutters _itsokay’s _and _everythingsgonnabefine’s _to him and touches his soft hair with his callused, ugly hands. He feels like a puppet impersonating an affectionate human, crouched at an odd angle to comfort the kid without scaring him, and touching him with so much hesitation as if it burns his palms and fingertips._____ _ _ _

________As his hands graze through thick black hair, he has to bite his lips to stop himself from crying. He is being crushed under the weight of existing in this world, this world that makes this child shed rivers of tears and won’t give him anyone to console him._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“What happened when he hit you?” he says._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“I don’t know,” mumbles the child, drowsy with sleep. He slowly nuzzles Remus’s hand. “It’s okay,” replies Remus “we sometimes make things happen when we are angry or sad.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“It was cold,” he says again, and Remus hardly keeps his composure._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“It won’t happen again,” he whispers “I promise.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________As the boy is lingering between sleep and consciousness, the man slowly sits up. Just as he stumbles to his feet, he feels a little tug on his arm. As he looks back, he sees Harry’s little fingers clutched on his wrist._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Remus sits back and watches the first lights of the day brighten the kid’s face. His little eyes are squeezed shut, almost as if he is forcing them, but his expression is serene. He looks like a child again, away from all the troubles and horrors and everything that life has brought him._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Remus caresses his hair and cherishes how his little hands hold his arm, trusting the man to stay in the same room with him. As he slips into a short and distraught sleep, he tries not to think about how much Harry looks like his father._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Not when he was older (which sounds like a crime to say, as if insinuating James Potter ever got old, as if saying 21 was an appropriate age to die) but when he first came to Hogwarts, running around the Quidditch pitch with a grin on his face, hair flying around._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He soon wakes up, feeling like he didn’t even sleep, and slips away from Harry’s soft hands. He has to go and figure something out for breakfast._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He likes the idea of doing nothing, doing nothing for long enough to become nothing. However, to his detriment, laying down awake means thinking and thinking and thinking until he feels like he will explode, like he will become a fire and burn himself down, his brows crossed and face permanently stuck to a pained expression._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Thinking until he can’t do it anymore, no, he can’t take it anymore so he will get up and go to the nearest Muggle pub and drink anything they have under the bartender’s judging, sometimes pitiful eyes, and hear him silently mutter how it’s only the crack of the dawn._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He remembers reading a poem about how worms take a bite out of your flesh every day until they reach your soul, and he feels like there are ten worms gnawing on his chest, ten different worms eating his flesh and bones bite by bite._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________One is guilt. It’s a fat, strong worm, biting huge chunks every time. Guilty of finding Harry so late. Guilty of not being able to give him anything he needs. Guilty of breathing big fat lumps of air as the boy’s parents rot in a ditch. Guilty of simply existing._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Another worm is anger, slightly smaller than the one before but growing exponentially every time Harry flinches when he moves._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________A broken rage for Dumbledore who gave the boy to Dursleys of all people._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________A sizzling hatred for the Order and the government and people, who let these children have children of their own and then die in battle they didn’t own._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________A crushing animosity in his chest for the Weasleys and Diggle and Doge and Podmore for surviving while they didn’t, surviving and continuing their lives while he couldn’t._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________But mostly, a white, hot rage for himself, for not saving them and not finding the traitor soon enough and letting them take Sirius, and still not believing that he could actually do it._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He is so exasperated at himself, so tired of his sick mind thinking of them and them and them all the time, thinking that he will open his eyes one day and be in Gryffindor dorms, his friends sleeping soundly, that he will enter a pub one day, the one on Hogsmeade that Lily liked and they will all be there, smiling and waving. Harry would like the place, he thinks to himself._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________But the pub’s been burnt down and Lily will never see his son smile again, so he just has to stop thinking about it._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He puts the kettle on the stove and fries some eggs. He hopes Harry likes eggs, though he is pretty sure he wouldn’t say it even if he doesn’t. Still, he is extra careful as he cooks some sausage, trying not to burn it. He divides everything into two ugly green plates, piling Harry’s plate a little too much._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He sets the plates on the little kitchen counter and goes to Harry’s room. Just as his fingers touch the doorknob, he remembers the little boy’s reaction to it from yesterday and decides to knock instead._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________After three soft knocks, he is unsure of whether he should barge in and count the boy’s breaths or simply wait. Just then, he hears another knock from the other side of the room._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________A thought lingers in the back of his head about how this little child most probably never had privacy, never had someone to knock on his door, maybe not even a door. Remus wonders what his room was like in that house and whether he shared it with the other kid._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Yet he suppresses his restless thoughts as he very cautiously opens the door and finds the kid rubbing his maudlin eyes on top of the blankets._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He looks so extremely innocent and dear sitting on the bed, so dear and so frail that Remus feels the worms in his chest peel over and fall from the scabbing wound. The gaping hole stays open but the slight stinging is filled with something warm, something warm and light like honey, sticking and mending his flesh together._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Good morning Harry,” he says with a smile. He knows it’s feeble and short-lived, yet it’s real._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He can’t remember the last time he heartily laughed, partly because it’s so hard to cherish good moments when you don’t live in them and partly because he doesn’t let himself. Living one emotion to the fullest would mean unlocking snippets of others, which is something he can’t risk._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Good morning,” he says as he hops down._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“I made breakfast,” says Remus._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Harry looks confused but just nods. He follows Remus’s lead to the kitchen where Remus very hesitantly helps him climb to the chair._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Remus hasn’t realized he still had a tiny bit of muscle on his bones, not that the boy is much heavier than a few anthologies stacked on top of each other. Still, he feels like he is fit for this thing, being a guardian that is, for a second._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Harry just looks at his food without any movement again and Remus is filled with a similar sense of dread. He desperately tries to intrigue the boy with the food as he hastily chews some sausage, “I like eating my eggs with bread,” he says “I don’t really like eggs.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“I make nice eggs,” Harry says quietly._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He bites his tongue and does not ask him how and why. “Maybe you can help me cook tomorrow, then.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________With a little more encouragement, Harry eats some of his food and has another bite of the chocolate frog with Remus’s coaxing. After breakfast, he asks Harry what he wants to do. Frankly, he has no idea about what children do the whole day. The boy shrugs._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He ransacks the house to find the child some spare paper and charms a pencil to change colors. Then, he sits next to Harry on the ground and just starts babbling as he draws random things._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He talks as if he has never uttered a word in his life, and this is his only chance to talk, talk, and talk, and feels like the rust on his tongue is slowly coming off._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Harry slowly grabs the pencil from Remus’s hands and starts drawing. He giggles and squeaks as Remus tells him the story of how once upon a time there were four friends._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He talks about Moony and Prongs and Padfoot and Wormtail and leaves out things like how Moony is a fucking monster and how everyone in the story is dead now. Instead, he tells him of a friendship so strong and powerful it transcends time and space and generations._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He tells him how Prongs and Padfoot pranked their professors and flew around on brooms. He tells him how they would hold Moony’s hand and force him to dance with them, dance till their feet ached and sweat beaded on their foreheads. “Dancing?” says Harry, eyes wide open._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Remus then turns on the little Muggle radio, which hurts a little as it is a reminder from the War, but he ignores the ashy feeling on the tip of his fingers as he tries to find a nice song touching random buttons._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He feels a little sick as images about how there was one of these in the Potter house once upon a time, but he brushes it off as the upbeat tune of A-Ha’s Take on Me fills his ears._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He stretches a hand to Harry, who falteringly takes it and gets up. Then, they dance like they never did before, till their feet aches like Moony and Padfoot and Prongs and till Harry launches himself in Remus’s arms, laughing with joy and cheerfully whispering “Moony,” as he wraps his hands around Remus’s neck._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Even if only for a moment, they both feel pure bliss and delight, spinning around the furniture away from all the sadness in the world and Remus almost believes some things could change for the better, and that he could be better. He thinks maybe he could be happy again and almost, he almost thinks the scars will one day heal._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! I hope you enjoy this chapter, please feel free to give any feedback and let me know if you want to see anything in the upcoming chapters. Have a lovely day!  
> ps. Would you prefer for me to post on a set schedule (on Thursdays and Sundays for example) so you'd know when the next chapter is coming, or just post whenever I can?


	4. chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW: implied/referenced child abuse, mention of the death/deceased, fainting, **disordered eating behavior **(unintentional)****

_Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head  
See, the sea wants to take me  
The knife wants to slit me  
Do you think you can help me?_

The Smiths, I Know It’s Over  
*

Remus is crouched into his book on the shiny green grass, trying to see the words on the yellow page under the bright sun. A golden lock of hair falls on his eyes and Harry reaches his hand from his lap and tugs the strand behind his ear.

“It’s not so bad, is it?” asks Remus as he looks around. He has a tiny curve at the corner of his mouth. Going out is always a challenge with Harry but he remembers how much loves the sunlight and the green trees surrounding them every time as soon as they step out.

“It’s okay,” the boy says, but his grin tells Remus enough. He is wearing a forest green sweater vest that matches the soft green of his eyes. The vest looks comically large on him but he insisted on wearing it as he saw Remus wearing one yesterday.

Under his thin jumper, Remus can feel his muscles ache silently as he lays on the grass, alerting him of what is about to come. He ignores it. He knows soon it will be too much to ignore, but until then, he will avoid thinking about it. 

He instead focuses on Harry. His mop of black hair rests on his thighs and he is silently playing with a Rubik’s cube. The child gets fidgety and anxious when he can’t entertain his hands or mind for a while, so Remus is constantly looking for something new to distract him.

He assumes it’s because when there is nothing left to numb or entertain the mind, it starts to fill with all the dirt you have been trying to throw away. Mud slowly stains every little thought and every little curve of your brain until you become the dirt itself. 

Harry doesn’t share what is going on in his mind most of the time but he loves the cube nonetheless. He also loves running around silently screaming and jumping and playing with balls, being a careless child.

Sometimes, a shadow of thought falls on his mind and he slowly retracts. He gets too hyper and scared to move at the same time, face frozen and lips twitching. 

Remus is slowly learning to look for the little signs and how to deal with them. He feels like there is no certain answer to what is the right thing to do but it seems like dispersing the rain clouds works the best, so he constantly tries to find things to entertain the boy when he is too anxious to be freely enjoying life.

Remus tries to cherish and appreciate each moment knowing how thin the thread keeping everything together is. It’s an after-effect of the war he thinks, to think nothing good will last long. But right now, he is peaceful and happy as Harry smiles softly and enjoys his day, being the kid he is.

They lay there for a while more, waiting for the sun to warm their bones. Remus can feel his pale skin blush under the sun. Moments like this, sun so bright and grass so green, remind him of Hogwarts. 

He thinks of walking through the Quidditch fields and of Gryffindor common room, warm and bright. He thinks of James and Sirius bouncing off the walls as the spring slowly arrives. He thinks of all the times he was unconditionally and carelessly happy. 

For the first time in a long while, his short collection of happy memories starts to expand. He thinks of Harry going out in the backyard for the first time, not to weed the flowers or carry things to the garage, realizing how much he enjoys grass under his little feet and sun in his eyes. 

He thinks of Harry jumping around, ecstatic as he sees a bunny for the first time. Slowly approaching the little animal, and petting its soft fur. Him saying “Like a cloud,” to Remus, mesmerized. 

Harry sleeping under the sun, his golden skin glowing with the lights and finally looking serene. He thinks of Harry waking him up with tiny little tickles on his belly and a grin, finally comfortable enough to touch him without fear.

He thinks of Harry launching himself to his arms, which still feels a little weird like his arms aren’t good enough to hold and not strong enough to protect him, like his chest is not broad enough to guard, and his words not gentle enough to soothe. Still, Remus hugs him tight and long, like every single time is the last one.

He is learning to enjoy the pressure on his neck as Harry pushes his head down on him. He is learning to forget old fears and love the boy gradually, trying to remind himself that he will tomorrow still be there.

He loves the feeling of being useful, the feeling of being so purely and innocently liked by someone and he loves moments like this, so mundane and real, almost making him feel like he is alive again.

The boy must be fed up with laying down still for too long so he suddenly jumps on his feet. His hands wrap around Remus’s bony fingers as he pleads, “Come one, Rem.”

Harry drags him to the fences where the red ball lays. They play fetch and run around and jump as Remus is slightly overwhelmed with the lightheaded sensation filling his head. He stumbles briefly as he runs behind Harry but easily camouflages his faltering. It must be the sun, he thinks. It must be the sun, and it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

Harry accidentally throws the ball too far, and it goes beyond the fences. His face abruptly goes stale and his eyes fill up with tiny drops of tears. “Sorry,” he says, barely audible. 

Every time, his breakdowns happen so suddenly and inexplicably. The first few times, Remus has let the anxiety and fear overcome him, asking the boy _whatiswrong_ and _whatisgoingon_ in a frantic haze, not realizing his apprehension made the boy’s tiny body tremble a bit harder. 

Slowly, by trying and failing and failing and failing again, by hyperventilating on the couch at night thinking he is the most despicable guard to ever exist, and by trying some more, he is finding new ways to soothe him every day.

“No need to be sorry, kid,” he reassures, “nothing’s wrong.” He puts on what he thinks is a soft smile on his face but it’s been so long since his parched lips have genuinely been stretched that he can’t remember how to put on a happy expression.

Harry curtly nods but he is as still as a statue, lips trembling. Remus tries to keep their routine going as he slowly approaches Harry, making sure he isn’t startled. “Would you like to tell me what’s wrong?”

“I made the ball go,” he mumbles.

He tries to be calm as he sinks on his knees to level with the child. “It’s only on the other side of the fence, Harry. I will retrieve it for you, is that okay?”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “No, it’s gone.”

Remus doesn’t understand what Harry thinks or says all the time, it’s been too long since he was a child. “Look,” he says, pointing his finger at the red ball on the mud, “there is the ball, it’s not gone.”

“I can’t see,” he says, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand. His eyes are filled with genuine fear and confusion.

Remus stands there as his brain short wires and then starts to work bit by bit again, bringing him pictures of James at the back of the Transfiguration classroom, complaining about how he can’t see a bloody thing on the board. 

He can’t think of anything else so he holds his fingers up to Harry and asks him to tell the number. 

The boy looks almost as confused as him but tells the number anyway. Remus slowly walks back to the fences, asking Harry to tell the number with every step until his eyes squint and brows cross, and he desperately says “I can’t see.”

Remus Accio’s the ball and walks back to the child. “I just wanted to see if you were special like your father,” he says, trying to keep his voice stable. His fingers are pale around the red ball and he can hear the faded chiming of an alarm bell far away in his mind.

It’s excruciating to talk about James in the past tense. So much more agonizing than thinking about it, because when his lips form the words and his voice fills the air, the truth becomes too real to bear. 

When he illustrates a picture of Lily and James in his mind and when he thinks about how they can’t be more than a two-dimensional illustration anymore, he feels like the worms work harder and take bigger bites from his wounds while when he speaks out and actually acknowledges James’s departure, the reality torments him so deeply he becomes the worm chewing on his own rotten flesh.

Yet he doesn’t want Harry to think something’s wrong with him or that glasses are a punishment, and his dumb little brain cannot come up with anything else. He just thinks how a little child would like to look like his role model and utters James’s name.

Harry just gapes with astonishment. He never asks about his parents except when Remus is talking about them. Not them as corpses, and them in the past tense, but stories of school children and stories of a stag hopping around water lilies and of two parents who just love their child more than anything.

“You see,” Remus says nonchalantly “your dad had to wear spectacles to see things better. He said it would make everything seem so much clearer. I thought maybe you would like that too.”

Remus wouldn’t like that but no other word leaves his pursed lips. He wouldn’t like to see so much of James in this child, but it’s not like he has a say in it. With his straight nose and cheery smile, his arms around Remus, and his eyes wide, he is a spitting image of his parents. He won’t tell him that, though, he doesn’t want the child to carry the burden of resembling his dead parents too much as if it’s possible.

Harry, truly like the little joyful child he is, forgets about his concerns and is beaming with excitement as he gasps “Like my dad?”

“Yeah,” Remus says and oh, Merlin, it hurts so bad. He rubs his chest as if it could ease the pain, and puts on an illusory smile. “Would you like to see it? Then we can get a pair for you if you’d like.”

It dawns on him in that exact moment that Harry most likely has never seen his parents. He doesn’t want to ask and upset him about whether Petunia Dursley had any pictures of her sister laying around, and he dismally knows the answer anyway. 

He curses his idiocy and selfishness, he has been trying so hard to run away from everyone and everything that he couldn’t even think of showing the kid his parents, the parents that would never be more than a picture.

Like always, Harry doesn’t blame Remus for fucking things up or being too late. He doesn’t ask him why he is running so blindly away from everything and doesn’t ask him why it hurts so much to think, think of anything. He is only beaming with excitement and admiration, for James and oddly, also for Remus.

He takes Remus’s hand and starts dragging him inside. Remus feels slightly nauseous as he follows him with big steps, thinking of how to keep his composure when he sees it. When he sees them. 

He makes Harry sit on the yellow couch, and the boy looks as bright as the glossy satin covers with that huge smile on his face.

Remus goes to the bookshelf on the left, which is filled with a few books he brought from his house. As he goes through everything piled up on the shelves, he sees the small paperback cover of Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, which confounds him. It’s been years since he has last seen it, and it reminds him of the same words every time.

_They are curled on the red velvet sofa in front of the fire. “Bloody hell, Moony,” says Sirius as he turns another page of his tiny book. His eyes move swiftly on the page, trying to devour each and every word as fast as possible._

_He kicks Remus slowly beneath their tangled legs. “You should have given this to me years ago,” he says as his fingers tap on the cover, “I could have been a fat black cat called Behemoth drinking all day instead of Padfoot.”_

_Remus sighs as kicks Sirius’s side back, “Then I’m glad I didn’t.”_

Sirius Black must have been here, he thinks, but it’s too discomforting and too painful to think, so he hesitantly puts the book back on the shelf as his fingers have been torched by flames and forces himself to forget.

Behind it is the thin spine of Another Birth by Forough Farrokhzad, and it slightly stings as he remembers how long it’s been since he last read it. As he sorts through some more books and heartbreaks, trying to find the old picture frame, his fingers meet the battered cover of a dusty little book on the very back of the shelf.

Startled, he forgets about Harry and James and glasses for a second and fixates on the book. He doesn’t understand how it could end up here. It’s been too long since he’d last seen this cover, and too long since he’d felt his chest open up like this. 

_“That’s for you,” Lily says silently, nudging a little parcel forward as the clock hits midnight. The common room is empty except for the two of them. The dying fire lights the room dimly and the last flames resemble Lily’s shiny red hair._

_Remus is so astounded he just opens his mouth without any sound leaving his lips. “What?” he gasps, followed with a quiet “Why?”_

_She has a fond smirk on his face that she got from James, like how the care and love in her eyes are mirrored in James’s. “It’s your 18th birthday, Remus.” Then, she pokes him with the tip of his quill. “Come on, unwrap it.”_

_Remus does as he is said, but his eyes are watery and his hands shake as he slowly rips the wrapping paper. The emotional and physical stress following up on the days after the full moon crawls out of his body, and the tiny hole in his chest is filled with intense love and friendship._

_He finally succeeds in taking the wrapping apart and sees the little book, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It’s from the 1920s with a hard leather-bound cover and hand-painted pictures on the front. It is already well-loved and used, has various rips and creaks, but it looks agonizingly beautiful under the candlelight._

_“It’s a little rough but I thought you might like it,” she says silently. She babbles about how she knows he doesn’t want presents but it’s special, it’s his 18th._

_Remus tries really hard to not shed a tear. Then, he does something unexpected and very cautiously hugs the girl. She has a soft, motherly smile on her face as she says, “I think you were right, Remus.” Her hands pat his back with care._

_“About what?” he whispers back, suddenly feeling so drained._

_“About Basil,” she says, “I think Basil loves Dorian indeed, more than an acquaintance and more than a friend.”_

_They are silent for a while as they both think for the fitting words to speak._

_“And that’s okay?” asks Remus finally, his words sound more like a whimper, his voice is about to crack and crumble like him. He desperately needs her reassurance, he needs her kind words and affirmations._

_“And that’s okay,” says Lily as she hugs him tighter, and Remus knows that she knows. She knows it’s not about Basil and Dorian and Maurice and Achilles, and it’s never been about them. It’s about him, him and him, and she understands._

He is taken aback as Harry very quietly asks, “You okay, Rem?”

He barely shakes the fog of the memory as he nods hurriedly and stutters, “I got… I got distracted. It’s okay.”

As he tries to ignore Dorian Gray’s hand-painted dainty eyes looking at him, his hands reach out to take the picture frame he hid as they first arrived at the house. He was just too drained to be looking at the picture every time he was in the living room, and he still feels horrified but wraps his scarred fingers around the frame and takes it to the boy. 

His hands slightly shake as he points to a man with a beaming smile and glasses. “This is your father, James,” he whispers as the bump on his throat doesn’t let him speak louder, “and this is Lily, your mother.” The memory leaves an ashy feeling in his tongue as he speaks of her name.

Harry brings his hand closer to the photograph and slowly strokes the little image. Remus once again bites his lip and puts an arm around Harry. The boy leans in closer to the side of his rigid body.

“I want glasses,” the boy says pointing at his father “like his.”

“I will get them for you,” Remus replies, his voice and breaths and hands and heart are shaking. 

They start playing a game of “Who is this?” which digs into Remus’s wounds and makes everything bleed over and over again, yet he doesn’t have the heart to say “no” to Harry as the child looks so genuinely happy and intrigued.

“Who is this?” he asks one more time.

“This is Marlene Mckinnon,” he says. “She was a close friend of your mum.” He stops talking as Marlene’s bright smile becomes unbearable to look at and remember, just like her dead body laying on the ground, her eyes open. Her eyes open and bright like they always were. Sweet Marlene, he thinks and it hurts.

He can’t suppress the hoarse strangled sound bursting from this throat, which makes Harry suddenly aware of his weeping. “What’s wrong?” he says in fear.

“Nothing,” he says as he tries to wipe his tears away, but sometimes the pain is so severe it won't go away with dusting the surface and the tears keep coming. “Nothing,” he repeats once more.

He tries to bite his tongue and stare at the ceiling, but Harry climbs on his lap and silently whispers, “It’s okay to cry when you are sad,” in his ear. Remus gives him a small, muddled smile. 

He is so glad for this tiny kid who silently hugs him and tells him that it’s going to be okay. He is so glad that no matter how horrible the circumstances were, Merlin, they were on the brink of a bloody war, Lily and James created this little human, who is so intelligent and so perfect.

“Yes,” he nods “it’s okay.” His pain slowly simmers down. It doesn’t go away, he doubts it ever will, but he very slowly learns to live with it. 

As Harry goes on his afternoon nap, he sends an owl to Pomfrey asking for a pair of glasses for Harry as he doesn’t know who else could help him. His hands shake as he writes a little note about how they have to be round, thin-rimmed ones and sheds one last tear as he concludes with, like the ones James had.

*

Remus is reading a book next to Harry silently eating his dinner when he is suddenly alerted by a breach on the protective wards. He is still jittery with the memories of the war. With his wand at ready, he jumps to his feet and is immediately hit by a wave of dizziness that makes his knees buckle. He holds onto a chair before hitting the ground and stands still for a second. Harry stops eating.

He hesitantly approaches the door and knocks three times: short, long, short. The one on the opposite side answers with two knocks, and says “Poppy Pomfrey here with Alastor Moody and Arthur Weasley.”

He is still on edge after looking at the Order’s picture for so long and is not satisfied with the security no matter how much he enforces it. “What was Marlene’s nickname on the radio during the war?” he asks before reaching out for the doorknob.

“Come now, boy,” says Pomfrey, her voice is weary but she soon is taken aback by Remus’s frustrated voice, “What was the bloody nickname?” 

He reeks of so much rage and resentment and exhaustion that Poppy’s voice sounds soft and pitiful as she mutters, “The Grim.”

Remus opens the door and suddenly it’s all too much and too little and his vision goes black as he sees glimpses of the three visitors. It’s too much for his body to uncover everything he tried so hard to bury all at once and it shuts down. 

As he staggers to the ground, he hears Harry shout his name but for a second he can’t comprehend anything around him. He is not fully unconscious as two sets of strong hands grip his arms and carry him to the sofa. He has a glimpse of Harry, or he thinks he has, kneeling next to the table with his face pale.

He comes to his senses just a few seconds later as Poppy is running diagnostics on him. “It’s okay,” he mumbles inaudibly. He tries to look at Harry and adds, “I’m okay.”

“It’s okay,” says Poppy mockingly, and pinches Remus’s bony arm with all her force, making him flinch. “You are a bag of bones, boy.” She looks genuinely angry as she unpacks little vials from her pouch. “Do you want me to bring a batch of nurturing potions for you as well?”

“No need to bother, Poppy,” he says, his voice bitter and sardonic, “I have lived with a lot less.”

At that moment, Harry silently gets up and leaves the room. As Remus recognizes the look of concern on his face, he doesn’t alert the rest of the people of the boy’s departure.

“When did you last eat, Remus?” Arthur asks, his face looks full of concern and care. Remus resents it. He fucking hates how this man was created to be a father, be the father Harry deserves and other kids deserve, all the bloody kids in the world. 

He hates how easily words roll out of his tongue, not pitiful or ingenuine, but full of paternal care and instinct. He hates how easily he succeeds in this, caring for someone, making him look like the worst guard a kid has ever had in the entire bloody world. 

Mostly, he hates how much he needs someone to look at him like that, see through his glass shield, and realize how the shield pierces his skin with its tiny shards.

“Some time today,” he says as he stares at the ceiling. He is not lying, he nibbled on some eggs and had a cup of tea in the morning, and a few bites of bread during lunch to encourage Harry. 

Now that he has to think about it, he realizes how it has become a habit for him to forget eating. He has never been really big on it even with all the feasts in Hogwarts and as he grew up, his priorities changed. As he struggled on the streets after the war, going from one bar to another, he didn’t really think of food. 

Until he started to work for Ira, if he had enough money, he would drink and he would buy enchanted flowers for Lily and James, flowers which he could never actually plant in their graves because it hurt too much to go to Godric’s Hollow. Other times he would buy wine, too much wine, and some books he would never dare to read. 

Arthur squeezes his shoulder gently as he speaks. “It was really hard when we first had Ginny. Ron was only an infant and the twins were about Harry’s age. I was working full time and Molly would just spend the entire day running and running and running around,” he takes a shallow breath, and a melancholic smile captures his face. 

“I wouldn’t sleep or eat to let Molly sleep through the night and wake up feeling like a corpse every morning. Every single morning,” he emphasizes, “until we realized how we couldn’t help the kids if we didn’t help ourselves first.” 

Remus only nods and is glad he stopped speaking. He is wearing the mask of Remus-the-shell now, and he doesn't want to ruin his blank expression with a crumb of pain and understanding, and one more wise word from Arthur’s mouth will ruin him.

He truly knows what Arthur talks about. Raising the sixth kid would surely be a struggle, but not as much as raising six kids through a war as you watch your friends and family fall to the ground one by one. 

He knows what he means when he says help yourself first, and how it is beyond eating and sleeping well. It is beyond the materialistic expectations of looking strong and firm and healthy, he knows it. It is about the wound, the hole. He has to fill it, somehow. That’s what Arthur and Molly did.

But the old man seems to forget that Remus has become the hole and the scar itself, and some wounds never heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello people! Thank you for your kind words and please feel free to criticize/ask anything in the comments. The next chapter will most likely be up on Tuesday!
> 
> ps. _This chapter handles some sensitive issues so I’d like to remind everyone to please take care of themselves during these hard times and as Harry says, it is going to be okay. ___


	5. chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW: mentioned/referenced child abuse, panic attack, mention of the death/deceased, (past) suicidal thoughts

About the stars and moon and sun:  
O would, beloved, that you lay  
Under the dock-leaves in the ground,  
While lights were paling one by one.

William Butler Yeats, _He wishes his Beloved were Dead_  


*

Remus wouldn’t say he had a bad life before. He had a terrible one indeed, cursed and agonizing, but he wouldn’t say it was bad.

Till the end, even when he thought he was on the deepest end, he had something to hold onto. He had so much in his claws to hold, so much to let slip between her fingers, so much to cry after and ache and ache and ache. Now, like him, these have become crumbs of what used to be a happy life, an empty mold at most.

He is bitterly jealous of Harry’s scarce, frail giggles. They are rare, even after the long nights they spent with each other. They are still timid and broken, hoarse as if he tries to suppress them, but still, they are careless and alive enough that it makes Remus glad for every obstacle and suffering he had to go through that led to this moment.

Sometimes it’s harder, like when Harry refuses to take a bath because he’s never had one and he is afraid of the water, and he screams as if someone’s skinning him because he is so simply and utterly terrified. He screams like he is in pain and suddenly Remus feels like he is back to the days after the Potters died when he would lock himself in rooms and sob thinking the pain would never fade.

It’s hard when he wakes up in the middle of the night, not knowing what he has seen, and crying softly to Remus’s chest. 

It was excruciating the first night he saw Harry woke up from a particularly bad nightmare. He was crouched under the bed, biting his own hand to stop sobbing and he looked like he might throw up, so frail and so helpless, but he still refused to take Remus’s hand to get out.

It’s getting better, not the nightmares but his fears maybe. No matter how hard the boy flinches every time he moves, Harry quite likes being held. Remus initially thought that was nice, cuddling with this tiny little frail human in his arms and reading a book, listening to his breath in his sleep, his chest moving soundly. 

Then Molly told him something about how the back of Harry’s head is very flat, which he didn’t think about a lot at first, but then he learned how babies’ heads flatten when they are not being held enough as an infant. Now, every time he holds the boy his heart aches thinking about all those years he had no arms to wrap and no one to embrace him.

These moments overwhelm Remus, sometimes with guilt washing over him in waves as he blames himself for not finding him sooner, not helping him sooner, for letting James die and Lily die and everyone else die. 

He blames himself for the purple fingermarks on Harry’s arms that refuse to fade. He blames himself for his skinny body, his tiny body that looks like a thin fabric stretched over a pile of bones.

Then, the responsibility, the pressure of a child, a whole human depending on him dawns on him. He once again feels like a young boy, such a strange feeling that it startles him every time. 

He looks at Harry’s face, all bunched up in discomfort after a nightmare that left him awake for hours, and remembers how he used to watch Sirius’s and James’s serene faces as the sunlight crawled inside the dorm room when he couldn’t sleep. He feels like that young child again, filled with horror and exhaustion.

He is too young, too young to be taking care of a tiny child. Alas, it doesn’t matter, they were too young to form the Order and fight for their lives and they did it anyway. They were too young once to fear their lives every night before they went to sleep, yet they still did it, so it should be okay. 

Lily and James weren’t too young to be having a child all those years ago. So years later he isn’t too young to take care of the child. After all, he surpassed all the ages many of his friends died. 

He honestly feels old, not in a mature way, not in the way that elderly people are, softened with life and experience and the joy of having lived. He is more like a decaying corpse, like food going bad, sudden and fast, rotting and smelling and toxic.

Yet in these moments with Harry, he feels so young. At the ripe age of twenty-four, he feels too young to have seen war, let alone fight in one, too young to have seen so much death and destruction. It’s a draining thought but at the same time, it fills him with an odd sense of tenacity. 

Because of this he will wake up every day and make breakfast for Harry, try to talk to him and guard him and protect him from every reality of the world. He will do it so Harry will never grow up having to think about killing curses and secret keepers, and he will never think about if he will survive the next day. He is so insanely determined to give him the most beautiful, most fulfilling childhood anyone has ever had.

But he is just so tired. 

He deliberately tries to only suffer when Harry is asleep. But after long years of simply only employing himself with being miserable, it’s hard to schedule desperation. He thinks he is doing an okay job, not as good as James and Lily would have done, but still a fair job. 

Harry assures him of this when he climbs onto his lap as the living room fills with people, people from the Order and Minerva and Dumbledore and Molly, and buries his head in Remus’s chest. He suddenly feels so powerful in those moments, like he will burst from the intensity of his love for this tiny human.

He is honestly bewildered by how much Harry’s existence has helped him. How his nightmares just stopped because he is so focused on Harry’s dreams now, how he eats almost three times a day and goes on walks. 

It’s been barely a month, but he feels like that black hole of a cavity in his chest has almost been taped over. It is not healed or cured, he doubts it ever will be, but Harry is the makeshift mend that keeps his insides from falling out and he is glad for once that there is someone there with him as he drifts through the never-ending abyss that is his life.

He is glad that he is woken up at the crack of the dawn to make sure the breakfast is ready for Harry before he wakes up as the boy rarely sleeps past eight.

He is even glad for the kettle’s thin whistle making him flinch.

He shakes his head to get rid of his drowsiness and fills two broken cups of tea. Harry’s cup is more like milk with a splash of tea, but Remus realized that the child feels more comfortable eating when he eats the same thing as him, so that’s what he does: eating mushy peas and Molly’s kidney pies, fish, and chips, milkshakes, and cookies. 

Today on the menu is slightly burnt sausage with eggs. He knows that Harry will never comment on his horrible cooking skills, but he is still a little ashamed of the sad-looking sausages.

As he sets the tray down on the table, he walks to Harry’s room. He also realized that tiny routines calm the child, so that’s what they do. He knocks on his door three times and waits until he hears the tiniest knock as a response. This is his sign to slowly, very slowly open the door and show Harry that it’s him. 

Harry, on the other hand, is ecstatic this morning. It’s not a completely strange sight, like all children, he becomes so purely excited at the tiniest things sometimes but Remus is astounded when the child launches himself onto his arms. “Rem,” he says “Rem, Rem, Remy.”

He relishes the child’s playful grin, filled with confinement as another waking moment passes with serenity. He nods his head slowly to let the child know he is listening. 

“Come,” he says as he jumps down. He grabs Remus’s sweatshirt and yanks him to the windowsill. “Look,” he says, exhilarated, but his voice drops down as he looks out. 

“It is a nice day,” replies Remus.

“No,” he whispers. “No, it’s gone.”

He tries to speak as calmly as possible as he recognizes the signs of a breakdown. “What’s gone, Harry?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, his words are lopsided and hard to understand. “I lied.”

“It’s okay,” he pats his shoulder gently “sometimes we get confused. What did you see there?”  
“Puppy,” he says as he sniffs “big puppy.”

No, thinks Remus, not even functioning enough to think anything else. He must shake himself and keep it together, it’s just a dog. But he feels so scared to look outside, so scared to look outside and see Padfoot. 

He lets his irrational fears take control of his mind again, not even stopping to think Sirius is dead. “What did it look like?”

“Big, black puppy,” he looks down again to see if it’s there, then silently adds, “It was smiling.”

Remus wants to crawl under the bed, crawl there and cry and imagine the hands of a ghost stroking his hair until he calms down. Instead, he leans forward and takes the boy in his arms. 

Now he feels so bony, so skinny and so insufficient, too weak to protect him and too stiff to care for him. “It sounds lovely,” he says instead. He carries Harry to the living room and doesn’t set him down on the sofa like he usually does.

As he sits with the boy still in his arms, he is afraid he might be scaring or overwhelming the kid, but Harry finds his usual spot cuddled on the side of his chest and starts talking cheerfully about puppies and birds and flowers and burnt sausages.

He puts his little fist on Remus’s shirt, just over his heart, and knocks the way he does every morning before opening the door to his room. He just mumbles “Fast,” and Remus snuggles him closer, closer, and closer, and he thinks he would rip his chest open and hide the boy there if it meant that he would stay safe. 

The kid doesn’t start eating until Remus takes a few reluctant bites himself. When the boy is completely distracted with eating his breakfast as if it is the best meal he could ever have, Remus gets up and goes to the loo. 

That’s what he tells Harry.

He can’t scream and shout and kick things, and he is so afraid of locking the door now because what if _he_ is here, and what if _he_ comes in? His mind is too woozy and too hopeful to remember that he is dead, he has been dead long enough for his corpse to decay till its last bit.

He has to first make himself forget the little sting on his heart that still tells him that he is innocent and he is alive. He has to shake himself and get it back together, he has to get up and protect Harry, protect him from what is to come and what has already happened. 

However, as the ghosts of his past catch up on him, he loses his ability to move. He falls gracefully as he can’t keep standing anymore but doesn’t want to alert the kid with the voice of his body hitting the ground, and clutches his own throat in despair. 

Suddenly, breathing is too hard, just like existing. He thinks of Sirius and James and Lily and tens of others, he thinks of the war and how his breath would hitch with fear of what was to come as the sun rose every day, he thinks of Harry and Harry and Harry, he has to protect him, he has to do something and be something and get up and get it together, oh Merlin, he is so scared.

He utterly and completely wants to disappear, not even leaving a crumb behind, going away as if he has never lived before. He wants to close his eyes and become nothing.

But instead, he rests his cheek on the cold tiles and taps slowly on his heart the way Lily taught him. As his two fingers tap silently, he thinks of memories to go with the rhythm. He thinks of the first moon they spent together in the Shrieking Shack, and the first time he honestly felt loved. 

It’s going to be okay, he says as he thinks of James telling him that. He thinks of Harry’s hands on his cheeks, slowly caressing his tiny bruises and saying it’s okay. It’s going to be okay, he thinks and repeats it. It’s going to be okay. He will make it okay.

With his hitched breathing, he thinks of James and Lily’s wedding, and how he very silently shed tears of happiness. He can’t remember, but he thinks of what the cake tasted like and the smell of freshly grown lilies around.

He thinks of _him_ , or at least what once was him. He doesn’t think of the Sirius Black that killed Peter and James and Lily, but that young kid in black leather who would tell him jokes and stories as he shivered in agony after a transformation. He thinks of the version of him left in his head, innocent and eighteen.

He thinks of Harry hugging him for the first time after a nightmare and he almost smiles. Harry reminds him every day how there are still so many things to be hopeful for and so many stars to look for when it gets dark.

After a while, his chest still aches and he rather would have screamed, but he gets up quietly and splashes some water on his face, and goes back to the living room. His breathing is level but his hands still shake slightly.

He firecalls Dumbledore first. Merlin knows how fiercely he despises having to talk to the man after everything, but he can’t trust anyone else. That’s why he calls him with a pained expression and asks him to _have some tea_ in the cottage, urgently. 

He and Harry wash the dishes together and talk about things. Remus thinks of Molly’s offer to introduce the boy to Ron and asks him whether he wants to meet new people but Harry is too hesitant to even say no, so they postpone their meeting for now. Harry draws a big black dog and giggles with joy as Remus makes the dog bark and they somehow spend more hours without Remus falling apart.

Albus arrives as Harry is taking his afternoon nap. He apparates to the front door, which is now guarded with too many unnecessary jinxes and charms and curses. 

“I think Sirius Black is here,” are the first words Remus lets out. Then, he makes a choking sound and falls to the armchair. “Harry saw him.” 

He doesn’t know what he wants to hear as it would hurt too much to be reminded of his death but the fear of him being the traitor and coming after Harry incapacitates him. He doesn’t know if he can handle years of running and fighting once again, especially thinking he would be fighting Sirius.

Albus takes his sweet time and pours both of them tea before answering. The tea is so bitter and tasteless Remus thinks he must be punishing him. “I assumed he might want to see his godson,” he sighs. His voice is so serene and untroubled, Remus thinks he is losing his mind. 

He wants the old man to get up and scream and shriek in fear because of what is to come, Sirius fucking Black resurrected. He wants him to feel the dread he is feeling, that paralyzing anxiety slowly filling his throat. 

Instead, Albus gives him a half-smile and gently sips his tea. “Do you have any biscuits?”

“Should I take him away? Can we find an Order safe house in France?” He waits for a second for Albus to answer but the man is silent. “Am I bloody mental?” he spits out in frustration as he can’t stand the quiet anymore. 

He must be insane, and he must be imagining everything about the dog because he can’t think of any other reason for the old man to be so untroubled. 

Instead of answering his doubts, Dumbledore says, “Maybe you should let them meet.”

Albus’s teacup explodes in his hands, shards skittering to the dusty ends of the room. Tea marks the old man’s grey robes and hands. He licks a drop from his thumb. 

“I am not a child anymore,” Remus growls and almost flinches at the resemblance of his low voice to a wolf’s howl. “You are in my house, talking about the child I’m taking care of,” he bits his tongue before he could say my child, not because he would deny it but it feels disrespectful to Lily and James. Still, his voice is ice cold and furious. “If you won’t help, get the fuck out.”

Remus looks almost as surprised as Albus as he hears the words leaving his mouth. He doesn’t think he could scold anyone like that, Moody or Minerva or just anyone else, but no one else had left Harry to rot in that horrible house with those people. 

No one else stopped Remus from looking for him, and no one else told him that the boy was safe and cared for and happy while his bloody skull changed because of how little affection his tiny body received and how little he was held in loving arms. 

No one else let the boy, the Boy Who Lived to slowly die in that house with no food to eat and no one to hold his hands, no one to calm him when he cried, no one to help mend his scars after he fell down and no one to teach him flowers and colors and lands afar.

“We are fighting on the same side, Remus,” the old man says softly. 

_I don’t know anymore_ , he thinks. 

He wishes Dumbledore to get up and wreak havoc instead of casting a fast Scourgify. He wishes him to slap him across the face and burn this house down so he could have a substantial reason to hate him as much as he does, but instead, he only pours himself another cup of tea. 

“Do you think you are well enough to handle some important news, or should I come back later?” Dumbledore asks as he takes a sip of the scorching tea.

Remus only nods, annoyed. He is too flabbergasted and too confused to resist and suddenly feels exhausted as if the worry inside him is eating him alive and he is withering away.

He rests against the uncomfortable armchair and thinks about what could be the important news. Like always, his mind thinks of the worst and the most despicable to prepare him for it. His palpitation hasn’t calmed down since morning, and he is afraid he will never feel tranquility again. 

“If you insist,” coughs Dumbledore and pauses. “I stand behind my words, Sirius would like to meet his godson and apparently, he won’t wait for my call to do it.”

“What?” he blurts out in absolute bewilderment. He pinches himself to see if he’s asleep, but a drop of blood confirms the reality. He must be joking with him, or worst, maybe he has actually been driven insane.

Surely, Dumbledore knows that Sirius Black broke out of Azkaban almost three years ago. Surely he must know that he hasn’t been seen ever since, and is presumed dead. 

Surely, of all the fucking people in the world, Dumbledore, who spoke at his trial and confirmed that Sirius was the secret keeper that betrayed Potters and the one who blew those muggles up knew this. 

Dumbledore must know what happened, being the one who calmed Remus when the young man came to his house pleading with him to end him because he can’t do it himself, asking him to _pleasekillhimhecantstanditanymore_ , after his last living friend was presumed dead. 

Dumbledore must know this, after all, he was the one who calmly refused Remus’s every single theory about how Sirius could have survived his escape after they found his bloodied Azkaban uniform on the rocks, assuming the dementors took care of him first, then the sea creatures and he was the one who refused the possibility of Sirius not betraying the Potter’s like Remus was insisting. 

“This was the only way of saving him,” Albus says only.

Too much blood, he said to Remus that night, too much blood and magical core left behind for anyone to survive. He said he was sorry, and worst of all, Remus believed him.

“Remus,” he whispers “you must understand that some knowledge transcends beyond our personal agonies.”

He is too numb to be angry, too numb to scream at him once more. “He is innocent,” he says quietly. Dumbledore confirms. “He is free,” he says. The old man nods.

“I’m afraid the traitor was Peter Pettigrew all along,” he adds.

There is so much to do and so much to feel, so much hope that his head spins, which is wrong, wrong, and wrong because he is not supposed to hope and think of all the good things to come when he knows they never will. 

Yet he is so overwhelmed with the boy sleeping soundly in the next room and the blurry image in his head of the last time he has seen Sirius, he puts his face in his claws, his claws that feel normal now like Padfoot’s soft paws and look like a human’s hands, flesh and bone, and weeps like the tiny scared child he is, at the ripe age of twenty-four where many lives have only just begun and many have already been lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are again! I hope this chapter was as enjoyable to read for you as it was to write for me. Please don't hesitate to give any feedback, your comments always make my day!


	6. chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW: graphic depictions of violence, scars, blood

Some love too little, some too long,  
Some sell and others buy;  
Some do the deed with many tears,  
And some without a sigh:  
For each man kills the thing he loves,  
Yet each man does not die.  
Oscar Wilde, _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_

*

As Dumbledore talks about Sirius, the only thing Remus can think about is Peter and Peter’s hands holding his and Peter beaming with joy when he finally became an Animagus and Peter holding Harry in his arms swiftly rocking the baby to put him into sleep. 

He thinks about Peter in the Potter house and Peter in a suit at their wedding, Peter in the Order meetings crying for every single person they have lost. When he tried to acquit Sirius in his mind before he would think about Imperius curse and torture, he would think of a spy in the Order and think of a million other stories, yet in all those years he failed to doubt Peter even once.

He feels so betrayed and so frustrated he can’t even find comfort in Sirius being alive. He mourned for Peter. He sent flowers to his mother and cried for him. He ached night after night for the scrawny little kid who held his hands and made him sandwiches. Now, he once again feels empty.

He wonders how many more times life will hit him across the face, so strong that his knees buckle and his skin tears and the force swings his head to the side just for him to see a sliver of hope growing next to him.

Amidst all his troubles, the full moon approaches faster than ever before. Usually, the lunar cycle is his only way of keeping time as he skids around. His count starts the day after the transformation and he strikes each hour with dread in his mind until he finally reaches another moon. However, this time, it almost feels like a fever dream. 

He refuses to think about how Sirius is alive and real and innocent until he survives tonight, and asks Dumbledore to keep his leash tight just for one more day. One more day so he could properly hurt for a night and forget about him.

Just before leaving he turns his head around and mumbles softly, “We may run, but not forever, my boy.” Remus refuses to answer him.

Dumbledore is clearly not aware of his perfect ability to run from things. He ran from Fenrir Greyback and he ran from Hogwarts at first. He started running from death at the age of 4, and he was never caught. 

He has been running from the past clutching his throat for years now, day and night, and every minute of every hour. He can’t make the hands disappear but he can at least breathe as long as he keeps running. The old man is underestimating how much he is willing to sacrifice to not confront his own emotions.

He spends the rest of the day completely ignoring thinking about anything Dumbledore told him. It creeps up from the little crevices of his mind, slowly poisoning all of it, but he is able to keep the dread and screams at bay by thinking of Harry and what will happen to Harry and what does Harry need and Harry and Harry and Harry.

He briefly explains to the boy that he will be gone for a day and he wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t necessary. He promises to tell more when he comes back, which he thinks is enough time to either find an elaborate lie about his whereabouts or find a way to soften the truth.

Their first option is to let Harry have a sleepover with the Weasleys, which the boy vehemently refuses. He rarely says what he desires, so Remus is pleasantly surprised to see him refuse something. He doesn’t admit it, but he is afraid of leaving the house, so Remus doesn’t insist.

The boy offers to stay alone for the night, which is absolutely out of question. He doesn’t want to leave the house and huge shiny eyes fill with big drops of tears as Remus mentions inviting a few Aurors to keep him company.

They compromise at him staying in the house with Arabella Figg and Moody, and he doesn’t have to leave his room which the others are not permitted in as long as he keeps the door open and willing to cooperate if he needs anything. 

Remus can see he is not delighted, but it’s the best anyone can do, and his bones hurt and ache too much to be quarreling with a toddler’s never-ending energy. Harry promises him that he will be a good boy and eat his meals and be polite if he promises to be back tomorrow. 

“I promise,” he whispers as he hugs him tightly.

Before the sun sets, he kisses the top of Harry’s hair with a concerned look in his eyes and leaves the house to Moody and Figg. 

As he closes his eyes before apparating he can only think of one place. He wholeheartedly doesn’t know why he goes there, yet one second later he finds himself in the backyard of the Shrieking Shack. The weeds have grown taller and the house shabbier, but it’s still familiar.

He hasn’t been here all by himself for so long that it hurts. He shamefully recognizes his own claw marks on the walls and fills with pity. The floorboards creak under his light steps and he is filled with an odd sense of comfort.

He would have never thought he would find such assuage in this hell of a house, but he is glad he is here. He can almost feel James’s reassuring hand on his back and he can almost hear his strong voice, telling him that it’s going to be okay. 

He even feels the jittery steps of Peter, behind everyone else and a little apprehensive as always. It was never sad to see his friend being afraid of him, instead, it would give him a painful reassurance. He was indeed a beast, and the people around him had every right to be afraid of him.

The memories this house brings have such an eerie combination of nostalgia and suffering, he thinks, it almost makes him feel something.

His life has changed beyond the emotional damage his soul suffers after the night the Potters died. He was left all alone in the next moonlight, once again becoming that 11 year-old-child, all alone in his cave and all alone in the world.

It was one of his worst transformations, combined with the severity of his emotional turmoil. The cave he locked himself in was ruined the next day as well as his own skin. 

He remembers laying on the ground, barely breathing and sobbing with pain when he could, not because his skin hurt or his flesh was torn apart, but he couldn’t take James and Lily and Peter out of his mind.

That’s how he got the countless marks on his back, running from his neck to down his spine. That’s how he got some of the ones on his chest and arms. They are the deepest scars marking his flesh, slightly more prominent than the rest of the white scratches covering his body. He doesn’t know what they look like and where exactly they are, it’s been a long time since he last looked at a mirror and he has always been good at charming his scars.

After that, with each scar and each painful night, he created a routine on his own. He grew more and more powerful and agitated with each moon passing alone, so he strengthened the security every time.

It took a long time for him to master the spells and locks and it is more agonizing than many other ways, but it’s also the safest. He hasn’t an ounce of trust for himself to not hurt anyone, therefore, that’s his only assurance as he once again locks himself in the little chest he spelled to not let him out.

It doesn’t feel claustrophobic to be inside the box anymore, it’s like a caterpillar’s cocoon. Except he won’t be a butterfly in the morning, only a rotten human with uglier skin.

He stretches his arms forward so his hands, which will soon be claws, go through the two little holes on the sides. That’s why every time there are new scars on his fingers and palms and wrists, his hands are the ones that struggle with the barriers the worst.

They are also the ones that hurt the most because they are the ones he sees the most as he cooks for Harry and as he draws something with him, they are the ones he sees every morning as he drinks a cup of tea and every night as the last thing before he falls asleep. 

It is slightly uncomfortable but he knows this way he won’t hurt anyone, so it’s okay. It’s nothing some charms and dittany couldn’t fix. He will most probably break part of the box by the end of the night, along with some fingers, and get hit by the protective curses he put there, but that’s okay too. He will live.

One thing he forgets to consider as his bones stretch and eyes water with pain is the intensity of his feelings. He doesn’t realize how insanely angry he is. He consciously puts away the guilt and hope, and he scrapes the remainder of what was once his heart so there is nothing left of anything, except he forgets to lock it, forgetting how it will all spill.

He lays there with hitched breaths as the pain flashes and makes his eyes go black, suddenly it’s too much to handle and he experiences a moment of blissful nothingness. Then, he comes back to life with the sound of his own howl in his ears.

Deep down, the tiniest and the most primitive version of himself, Remus Lupin is there. He is buried so deep and his existence radiates such a feeble little light that soon the instincts of a wild animal overwhelm him.

He doesn’t feel anger in the way he usually would as a human, being mad at himself and the world, but simply feels the purest form of rage, a wolf noticing the boxes and walls trapping him. He is feeling the origin of his emotions, the extract of his soul, and it crushes him.

It crushes him as he howls once more, not because he wants to be free and join his pack and not because he wants food, flesh, blood, and men, but because he is so irrevocably and vitally hurt.

His simple mind as a wolf cannot comprehend the magnitude of his feelings, they are too complex and too vigorous for the animal, thus, as he goes through them, his mind and his body start clashing both rejecting each other.

It feels like a night from a long time ago. It feels like that moon when Lily died and James died and Peter died and Sirius was gone, but even then, he remembers suffering, suffering as Remus and suffering as the wolf, mourning after the lost members of his pack.  
But now is different.

He is concurrently and forcefully going through a million emotions and memories which his wolf self cannot comprehend. His mind can only feel pain and pain and pain, but he looks at his claws and his furry belly, and he knows he is safe and his body is intact, no scars or bleeding.

His front claws start hitting the box in panic. For the first time, he feels like the box is too small and there is not enough air. He will die here, he thinks. His mind screams at him to fight, but the voice is soon overwhelmed with pain. 

The agony is so strong it bounces off the walls of his head like a ball, hitting every corner and filling all the little crevices until it becomes all he thinks and feels, and everything becomes hazy after that. 

He barely remembers his paws breaking the box, splinters, and cuts everywhere, but he doesn’t try to get out. As he retracts his extremities to himself, his body becomes limp in the hardwood floor of the chest.

He is slowly whimpering, and his mind goes blank. He feels the gnawing hunger in his stomach, and it feels somehow safe. It is at least a familiar kind of pain.

He lets out a pained and shrill howl, but it’s so tiny and weak to be heard. The sticky blood is dry on his claws and legs, and he realizes how deep the cuts are. 

He feels like something wet is sliding down his eyes, and tries to wipe it away with his claw, but his limbs are too heavy and too uncoordinated, he ends up cutting two thin lines on his cheek.

He cries out with pain, not because it hurts or the cut is so deep, but because the wolf instinctively knows how the scars on his face hurt his soul the worse, and they leave the biggest imprints on him. Then the haziness takes over, and his mind fails.

The next time he opens his eyes, he is Remus again.

He feels like a rag doll in the box. His arms and legs are bent at odd angles, but he slowly realizes there are no broken bones. He feels a soft sting on his face and barely remembers scratching it, but he doesn’t touch it to see if there is actually a scar there. He is too afraid of what his fingertips will see.

The warding spells on the box lift as he is back to his human form, but he is still hit by a few small jinxes as he crawls out of the box.

The first lights of the day are bright and pink, slowly filling through the creaks. Last evening, he thought he would apparate to the house in the morning, but he is too exhausted to do anything. 

His slow breathing is labored, and crawling out of the box has drained him. He is cold on the ground, shivering and shaking but he can’t move and get his coat and he can’t stop whimpering. 

He can feel salty tears falling out of his eyes and he desperately wishes for someone to wipe them away. He wishes Madam Pomfrey would help him like when he was young and he wishes the Marauders to be there.

He wishes his father would crawl on the ground with him, he wishes him to help him up and he wishes his mother would caress his hair and wipe his blood, but he stands still and alone on the floor, once again realizing there is no one but him.

He tries to do something, anything until even thinking becomes too tiring. Then, he shuts his eyes one more time and tries to make the pain fade. As he is lingering between consciousness and nothing, his mind fills with an image. 

_He is in this exact room, but he is tiny enough that the house feels creepy and the walls seem colossal. Madam Pomfrey has just left after hastily mending the gash on his left abdomen and some smaller scratches, promising to be back soon as he refused to go to the infirmary._

_It’s the first lights of the morning, and in front of him stand James, Sirius, and Peter, all in their pajamas. Peter looks like he is about to faint, but he stands his ground as Sirius nudges him with his elbow._

_Remus is so surprised to see his friends here that he can’t open his mouth. He thinks how and why and what, but stands there pale and stern, not being able to speak._

_“We know why you’re here,” says James. His voice is as nonchalant and cheery as it always is, but he can feel a tinge of fondness and admiration in it, which surprises him. Why on earth would James admire him?_

_He knows he is bad at it, but that’s what his father wants and his mother wants and Dumbledore wants, so he lies. “I was visiting my mum as I told you,” he mumbles. He is too tired to be speaking in a loud voice. “I floo’d here.”_

_His weak words don’t even convince himself. Nobody speaks for a second. They are all exhausted after standing up all night and too drained to be quarreling. “It’s okay, Remus,” whispers Peter._

_“We know you are a werewolf,” says Sirius slowly, and his expression is somber and soft as he says it. “We saw you last night.”_

_“You saw me last night,” he repeats in disbelief. The fear of hurting someone overwhelms the urge to deceive them. “How could you?” he barely screams, followed by a line of coughs. “I could have hurt you. I could have-I could have killed you.”_

_“You wouldn’t,” replies James, but suddenly Peter looks a little paler. “We know you, Remus. You wouldn’t hurt us.”_

_“You know me,” he says, pointing at his chest, “not… not it.”_

_“You shouldn’t be doing this alone,” says Sirius, he looks determined to debunk any argument Remus gives._

_“I’m not alone,” he says “Madam Pomfrey helps me.” He will be grateful for her till the end of his days, but the incredulous looks his friends give makes him rephrase. “I have to be alone,” he whispers and falters on his feet. Sirius is the first one to jump forward and grab him before he falls to the ground. They all huddle together around him on the tiny sofa and wait for him to catch his breath._

_Remus is too flabbergasted to open his mouth and speak. He can’t believe they found him. He can’t believe they care enough about him to wonder what happens to him when he goes away every month, and he can’t believe they like him enough to not run away, but help him instead._

_James takes out a vial from his robe pockets, and takes a sandwich wrapped in tissue paper from Peter, and hands him both. “You weren’t at the dinner last night,” he points to the sandwich, “and we stole some dittany for you from Slughorn’s cabinet.”_

_“You did what?” asks him in shock._

_“Madam Pomfrey has been working all night with the Dragonpox outbreak,” says Sirius, “We wanted to make sure,” he points to him with his chin and his voice trails off, “you know.”_

_“You are insane, Rem,” James says as he takes a bite out of his sandwich with a mischievous grin. “All this time you’ve been doing this alone,” he says with affection._

_Remus shrugs, not sure of how to handle the compliment._

_He silently eats his sandwich as James goes on to tell him about Quidditch and professors and some girl in her class, and he is glad they are talking about something else. He can feel the remaining crumbles of his energy slowly leave his body but he is so touched and proud to be falling asleep._

_They sit there and talk as if they haven’t just learned he is a werewolf until hours pass and the sun rises. He can barely keep his eyes open as he watches Sirius unwrap his scarf and gently put it around his shoulders._

_“You are shivering,” he says matter-of-factly and Remus barely realizes how cold his body is. He gives back a weak smile._

_Then, James leans into him, and he looks somehow angry and passionate at the same time. “You can’t make us go away, Remus,” he says, his voice is firm and strong, then he hugs him gently. “No matter how hard you try.”_

_Remus believes him._

_Then, all of them are suddenly on top of each other, giggling and laughing as they are crushing under the weight of each other, childish and careless. He feels a hand on his back, straightening him as he feels like falling and slowly caressing, reassuring him that he is safe. Suddenly, no matter how his gashes ache and his body hurt, all is well._

He blinks one more time, and he is alone on the floor of the Shrieking Shack again, naked and shivering in the cold. 

His vision goes black, but he can swear he feels hands on his face, slowly putting his hair away. Before his body fails completely, he nudges his face towards the imaginary warmth of a ghost’s hands, trying to remember what it feels like to be loved again.

They have all gone away, he thinks, and he didn’t even have to try hard. They have all, all, all gone away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello lovely people! First Marauders flashback, we will see a lot of those in the next few chapters. Things will accelerate from here, exciting things are coming soon! Please let me know if you would like to see anything, have any feedback/criticism.


	7. chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW: mention of blood/scars

How frail the human heart must be —  
a throbbing pulse, a trembling thing —  
a fragile, shining instrument  
of crystal, which can either weep,  
or sing.

Sylvia Plath, _I Thought I Could Not Be Hurt_

*

Remus barely opens his eyes, but he can’t see anything as his lids fall back again. He lets out a strangled moan as his body awakens for a second but he is back to nothing in another heartbeat.

He can almost sense someone hovering around him, whispering words in his ears and holding his frozen fingers. He doesn’t feel the hardwood floors under his bare legs anymore. I should be dancing in the air, he thinks in a haze before his consciousness slips again.

*

_“Are you sure, mate?” says Sirius with a wicked grin “I’m not sure if the girls love back legs.”_

_“Sod off,” James replies and he doesn’t seem concerned the slightest bit. His well-fitted robes swing behind him with the wind. He knows he brewed the potion perfectly, and he knows he has the power to perform the spell, there is nothing that could go wrong._

_“You don’t have to do this,” says Remus. He knows his words carry no weight, yet he feels inclined to say them nonetheless. He is jittery with anxiety and fear growing in his belly. His face looks distressed, pupils dilated, and eyes bright red with exhaustion._

_“I don’t have to sneak into girl’s dormitories as well,” he says arrogantly, “but I still do it.” Sirius elbows him at the ribs, and they all let out a stressed laugh. “It’s going to be okay,” James says, and he is so confident and so firm in his stance that Remus believes him._

_“Unless you keep me here until the storm ends,” he adds impatiently as he gestures to them to move. They silently enter the Shrieking Shack and walk to the “living room”. Sirius launches himself on the little couch and joins his hands at the back of his neck._

_Remus is too skittish to sit anywhere but rests his back on the couch next to Sirius, who knowingly watches his bony hands rub each other with fear. He pats his shoulder gently, insinuating that there is nothing to be scared of. Remus doesn’t answer._

_“Here goes nothing,” James says as he shakes his body. He tips his wand to his heart, which slightly unsettles Peter, and murmurs the incantation. “Amato animo animato animagus.”_

_He makes a little gesture as if he is saying “cheers” as he gulfs down the blood-red potion in the vial. Remus thinks he is going to be sick, but he can’t take his eyes away from James. He has to see if anything goes wrong and he has to do something._

_James’s figure blurs, shrinks and reforms again as he lets out a gasp. Then, suddenly there is a stag in front of them._

_Peter is so surprised that it actually worked, he spits his mandrake leaf. He curses feebly as he realizes he has to find another leaf to put under his tongue and wait another month to catch up with his friends on the potion._

_Remus and Sirius are losing their minds with exhilaration. “It worked,” Remus shouts. Sirius bolts to his feet as he screams “Bloody hell,” at the stag._

_“You made it,” gasps Remus. “You made it!”_

_There are other things he won’t say as well. He won’t say how grateful he is for these people, these kids for being there for him. Being there for him and accepting him, accepting his many curses and his very little blessings. How grateful he is that they try to help him. How grateful he is that they simply exist._

_Shortly after that James transforms back into himself, swinging on his feet. They take his hand and make him sit on the couch, all grinning sheepishly. “Did it hurt?” asks Remus._

_“No,” he says as he touches the top of his head, his foolish expression is intact. “I had antlers,” in shock._

_“Yeah, you bloody did.”_

*

His mind slowly starts to work again. He can hear a fire burning, the sound of wood crackling, and some footsteps a long-distance away. He slips again.

“Why is he still asleep?” someone asks, the voice is so inhumanely familiar and so strange. “What is wrong with him?”

He doesn’t stay awake enough to find out the answer. He thinks about how he is cold and aching and sweating and hungry, and the black dots take his mind over again.

*

_“Are you sure you want me to come?” Remus asks once again. It’s Slughorn’s annual Christmas dinner, and to his surprise, Sirius invites him to go with him. Peter and Remus are not in the club, but Peter decided that he would rather spend his time with her girlfriend and he was planning on reading in the Common Room all night before._

_“Stop whining,” says Sirius as he shuffles his hair in front of the mirror. “Lily and James are going to be there too.”_

_“They are always there,” adds Remus silently. He can’t really tell the boy how insecure and beastly he feels, he wouldn’t understand it anyway. It’s their seventh year together and Slughorn barely remembers Remus’s name._

_He looks like a movie star, inheriting all the pure and glamouring Black genes. He looks and acts and feels so impeccably pretty and smart and confident all the time that the fear in Remus’s heart would be laughable to him, and that’s why he doesn’t even try to explain._

_“What difference does it make?” he says and turns around to see his friend’s troubled face. “We will be there, you and me and James and Lily, and we are going to have fun.” He stays silent for a second but continues as he sees Remus getting ready to say something, “This could be the last,” he says silently._

_“Don’t say that,” Remus replies. His brows are crossed and his heart racing. It may be their last Christmas at Hogwarts, but surely that doesn’t mean it’s the last Christmas they are spending together._

_“It’s coming, Remus,” he says, more serious than he ever is. “You know it’s coming and I know it’s coming. Let us have one more night in peace.”_

_Remus only nods as he has no words to answer that. He feels overwhelmed even thinking about the possibility of what the future will bring them, yet he takes Sirius’s advice. For one night, this night and this night only, he won’t be stressing about it. He will try, at the very least._

_“Also,” Sirius says as his voice is back to his usual mischievous tone “I have this,” and shakes a little flask._

_“Merlin,” Remus murmurs. “How did you get that?”_

_“I have my secrets,” shrugs Sirius, “and so does Padfoot.”_

_They walk to Slughorn’s chambers and hear a cheery tune filling the air even from the opposite end of the hall. Inside, a house-elf checks their name from a list and lets them to the most vigorously and tastelessly decorated room they have ever seen._

_Sirius, having seen many Pureblood balls and dinners, chuckles at the sight of mismatched ornaments and candles and little knick-knacks all over the room. There is a huge Christmas tree in the middle of the room, filled to the brim with gold, red and green. Everything looks so grossly and outrageously pompous._

_They spot Lily and James sitting on the windowsill, hands intertwined. They look genuinely happy and at comfort, which slowly eases the anxiety thumping in Remus’s chest._

_For a while, they talk about classes and examinations and people and everything else. Everything except the most pressing issue at their hands, yet all of them are silently glad for it. They all know that soon enough it will be too much to ignore._

_The room slowly fills up with more and more people. Sirius secretly pours some Firewhisky from his flask in their drinks, and they become more and more careless with every little sip._

_By his third glass, Remus already feels slightly dizzy. Professor Slughorn raises his crystal chalice, slowly hitting the glass with his spoon and everyone heads to the round table. Remus is glad that he is too far away from Slughorn to converse, but turns out Sirius wasn’t the only one who brought something else to drink as they realize the man is too intoxicated to do a proper toast._

_Remus loses interest in the man’s drunk babbling as his stomach flips inside him with hunger. He mindlessly lifts his hand to reach for the fork as Sirius hits his fingers with blunt force and silently screams, “No!”_

_The music and Slughorn combined is too loud for anyone to actually hear the fierceness of his voice, but Remus immediately sobers. He is alarmed as he faces Sirius, trying to understand what’s wrong._

_Sirius, with a look of pure disgust in his face leans toward him and whispers, “It’s silver, Remus.”_

_The words crash him._

_He doesn’t know if it’s the alcohol hitting but he suddenly feels overwhelmed with emotions like a little child. He feels like crying and throwing a tantrum in the middle of this room, making sure every single person hears his agonized screams._

_He shouldn’t be sad, really. That’s what he deserves. He deserves to be reminded of how he is different. He deserves to be reminded of how he is a beast, a bloody werewolf. It’s okay, he tells himself. Don’t make a big deal out of it._

_“I transformed them,” says Sirius in his ear “it should be okay now.”_

_Remus just sullenly nods, not able to speak any words. He didn’t see him do it, but Sirius has always been good at wandless magic. He doesn’t have much of an appetite left anymore, but he nibbles on some roast and peas to entertain his hands. As he raises his hand one more time to bring a single pea to his lips, Sirius tugs on his arm. “Let’s go.”_

_“What?” he says, trying to focus on his lips as the noise drowns his voice._

_“Let’s go back to the dorms,” repeats Sirius “I’m bored.”_

_Remus is about to say something about Lily and James and how it would be rude to leave, but Sirius points to the blurry shadow of a couple snogging behind the curtains, and Remus shuts his mouth._

_When they leave the room, Sirius says, “Let’s go to the Astronomy Tower.”_

_Remus is startled once again but his head is blurred from all the shots he gulped down, and he feels like he can climb the Astronomy Tower with his bare hands. “Okay,” he says silently, and they start running on the corridors, climbing stairs and giggling like toddlers as they hear footsteps._

_As they reach the top of the Tower, they fall to the ground breathless. Sirius gets the tiny metal flask out of his black robes, the metal reflecting the lights of the stars. “It’s a nice night,” Remus says as he has another mouthful of the whisky._

_“We will have many more of these, right?” he asks._

_Remus is slightly startled at his pleading and scared tone. It feels so surreal, so out of character for Sirius. “Yes,” he mumbles under his breath. Then, with a drunk fierceness, he says it one more time, “Bloody yes,” he pauses as he is lost for words, “we will have so many of these nights.” He opens his arms as if he is trying to show, and mutters again, “So many.”_

_Sirius joins him as he opens his arms wide, shouting “So many!” into the empty night and the black sky._

_“Merry Christmas, Remus,” Sirius says, a drunk grin on his face._

_“Merry Christmas to you, too.”_

*

Remus wakes up, thinking he would see the stars or the stones covering the Astronomy Tower’s walls, but his eyes are welcomed with a glimpse of dusty wood before closing.

He feels hands again, on his face and on his scars. The touch feels so real it hurts. He often dreams of being held after a transformation. He dreams of hands on his hair and on his skin, slowly soothing his pain. That must be one of those, he thinks. But he is glad it’s so real, so warm and alive.

He feels a sting on his chest, thinking about the memory clogging his head. He is surprised at how visionary Sirius was at the age of 17. It was long before Remus actually started to fear for things.

It was indeed the last Christmas they spent together. The next year was when the Potters went into hiding. It aches a little, thinking about how they thought they would have many more beautiful nights. In a sense, they did, but they were numbered and steep, with a tinge of fear in all of them.

So many days with pure melancholy and pure bliss, he thinks and another dream fills him as the reality slips away.  
*

_It’s a bittersweet day, yet they have been longing for a crumb of happiness for so long that it feels like a fairytale. There are maybe fifteen people around, all looking teary-eyed and filled with joy._

_Sirius is slightly melancholic as he is not permitted to throw the biggest party ever thrown to celebrate his friends, but he is so proud of being the best man. He is still happier than he has been in a very long time. He simply can’t erase that cocky grin off his face. Not that anybody cares, his cheerfulness almost feels contagious._

_As Lily and James slowly dance to a song for the first time as a married couple, Remus can’t help his happiness fall down on his cheeks as a few drops of tears._

_He hasn’t felt so deeply and purely happy for anyone in his life, and he is so glad that his friends are able to find serenity and joy in each other even in the worst of times. He is glad that now they have each other to hold onto and each other to look at and smile._

_There is a tiny tug at his own heart that accelerates the falling of tears, a tug that asks him to love and love and love, but he knows his hollow soul cannot take it. That’s why, he tries to be happy for them, and he truly is, he is exhilarated for them._

_As the song shifts, Remus recognizes the piano notes of Queen’s Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy, and he can’t help himself chuckle. One thing Lily and Remus share beyond their passion for studying is their love for Muggle music._

_Lily points at him, mouthing the words to the song, and he starts dancing on his chair. He acts like he has a guitar in his hands and plays it, which makes Lily laugh heartily._

_Sirius sees her chuckle and he grabs Remus’s hand, forcing him to get up. “Now, you have to dance,” he says in disbelief “you have been dancing without me in your seat.” He puts a hand on his chest as if he’s been hurt, as charming and playful as always._

_They dance together on the grass until their heels ache and Lily is so tired she falls to the ground, taking James with her. Sirius laughs and laughs and laughs until his chest hurts, and Remus even convinces Peter to dance with them for a while._

_Lily doesn’t talk about how Marlene and her family couldn’t come because they are afraid of being seen after Mr. Mckinnon started receiving death threats. They don’t talk about how Dumbledore told in his letter maybe it would be fit to have a mandatory sabbatical at Hogwarts until things calmed down a little. They don’t talk about how Remus will be gone soon, sent to a distant corner of Europe to do Dumbledore’s deeds._

_They just dance like they have no care in the world as James holds Lily’s waist and spins her around, murmuring, “Because I'm a good old-fashioned lover boy.”_

*

“Harry,” he murmurs when he can muster enough energy. It feels like his body is breaking, every single one of his bones is crashing, and his tight muscles and flesh are tearing at the ligatures. He feels like he will explode, scattering gunk and fire and ash everywhere. 

He says Harry, but he can’t comprehend why. He doesn’t even fully understand or remember who he is, yet his brain is screaming his name. 

He feels a drop of tear slide down his cheek, and he is instinctively scared that the salt will rub on his scar, yet a hand stops it. It must be father, he thinks. He cares for him after the transformations when mother is too scared to touch him. 

He is lost in time and space, drifting through the universe. He can’t open his eyes or move or speak anymore, which scares him. Suddenly, he is the only one on this earth, only one breathing air and living through tragedies. 

He feels so adrift and so petrified, being the tiny dot he is in the entire universe of big circles. He feels like he is the only one filling a suit of flesh in a world of shells. He is so scared, so scared, so…

Someone gently strokes his face. 

He goes back to drifting through space, until his anchor is stuck at another one of his memories, pulling him away.

*

_The order house is asleep except for the two bodies huddled together on the balcony._

_“Regulus is dead,” Sirius whispers as he slides down to the marble ground._

_Remus tries not to show his sorrow as he asks, “What happened?”_

_He is not startled or surprised, a life fading away has lost its shock value in the last couple of months. Moody says it’s a bloody war, that’s what happens._

_It’s still a prickling kind of a pain in his gut that slightly stings with every breath but he is desensitized enough that it won’t make him retch on the bushes. He doesn’t really know Regulus, he only knows he was on the bad side, and that makes him nauseous._

_Still, he is Sirius’s brother, and he is dead. A young boy, too young to differentiate good or bad. They are young too, yes, but it still hurts. Too many people lost for a cause that they don’t even understand._

_He talks about how he didn’t want to tell James and Lily, “They have too much to worry anyway,” he adds. Then, he is silent for a while. Remus knows the twists and folds of his expression well enough to not intervene._

_“I don’t know what happened,” Sirius says eventually. “He is dead. He died a traitor.”_

_Sirius tries to keep his composure and act like it doesn’t hurt to say those words but Remus understands. He understands from the little crack on his voice as he tries to cover it, and he understands from his eyes so desperately trying to find someone to look at._

_“The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters,” he says softly. “He was young and naive, so easy to manipulate.” His heart thumps faster in his chest as he struggles to believe his own words. It’s so easy to blame someone, anyone when you suffer so deeply, but he tries to choose the words that would console Sirius._

_He looks older, years and years older than he was a few months ago. Older than he was when he danced with him. It’s an exhausted, drained age that doesn’t fit his perfectly crafted complexion. It juxtaposes with his lopsided grin, which is becoming rarer and rarer, and his cool grey eyes now just look grim._

_“We are young,” he spits in anger, black curls on his face flies with the strength of his movement. “We are so bloody young, yet look at where we are.”_

_On a random marble balcony, drinking cheap Muggle wine, Remus thinks, which is a taste he acquired recently. He is trying to be pleased with how effective and cheap Muggle alcohol is, yet the desperation of Sirius’s words still tingles a little. Look at where we are._

_“He wasn’t fortunate enough to have Marauders to help him as you did,” Remus says._

_“He had me,” his voice breaks as he rephrases, “he could have had me.” He grits his teeth and wavers his hands in the air. “And if he was so horrible,” his voice trails off, “then why does it hurt so bad?”_

_Remus has no words left to say._

_He gets closer to him and leans his shoulder to Sirius’s, who is biting his palm to stop the tears from coming. His eyes are bloodshot and pained, looking helplessly at Remus, begging him to do something. He gently hands him a single cigarette, the last one on his box._

_He usually counts them carefully every day to make sure they last as long as possible, he can’t afford to have new packs every day, yet he would roll his own arm as a fag for Sirius if he needed that, so that’s really not a big deal._

_Sirius, slightly calmer, drops the second bomb. “I broke up with Marlene.”_

_“But why?” asks Remus, genuinely curious. They looked nice together, he thinks. They were nice together. Beautiful and handsome, smart and kind, lighting the room as they enter. He likes Marlene._

_“We don’t love each other,” Sirius says, “I don’t think we ever did.”_

_“I’m sorry,” whispers Remus._

_“We just needed something to hold onto,” he continues “but we can’t have it anymore.” Remus understands what he means. All this death and pain and destruction make it impossible to think of anything but surviving anymore, and they are too exhausted to try to hold onto each other just for the sake of old memories._

_“You have us,” he whispers, “me and James and Lily and Peter. You have us.”_

_“Yes,” Sirius murmurs as he looks up to the sky, “I have you.”_

*

It doesn’t hurt so much anymore.

He feels immobile and numb, like his frosty fingers will never lift and eyes will never open, but it doesn’t hurt.

He can hear his own heart thumping in his ears, and anxiety prickles his skin like a thousand little thorns. Then, it suddenly dawns on him. Is he dead?

That should be the case, he can’t think of another reason for his peaceful state. He isn’t remarkably sad at the news, he has been dancing around death for so long that it doesn’t surprise him that he is finally caught. Then, his name dawns on him.

”Harry,” he says absent-mindedly. He doesn’t understand how his chapped, dry lips opened and let out his growl. He tries to get up, tries to awaken his dead limbs, he has to get up and find Harry. He has to tell him he didn’t leave him. He has to tell him that he’s sorry.

As he tries to lift himself up on the bed, someone grabs his arms and lowers him back to the ground. It gets too much for his body, and before he can utter his name once more, he shuts down.  
*

_“Three queens,” James blurts out, confident._

_“You’re bluffing,” says Remus. He opens the cards on the table and smiles. James begrudgingly takes all the cards. “Two kings,” Remus adds and puts his remaining two cards down._

_James looks flabbergasted. “You know me too well,” he says finally. “Bloody Muggle games,” he murmurs. He is sitting criss-cross in his blue flannel pajama bottoms and looks truly shocked at the results._

_“We all have our strengths and weaknesses,” says Remus, his tone is more mocking than ever, and he is practically beaming with delight. He just beat James Potter in a card game, fair and square._

_James hits him on the head with the back of his hand, and they both laugh. Just then, they hear a knock on the door. They hear Euphemia Potter’s hasty steps walk down the stairs to open the door._

_“Sirius!”_

_James and Remus get up as if they have been electrocuted. They were supposed to meet here at the Potter’s yesterday, but Sirius sent a last-minute note saying he won’t be able to make it and Peter would be joining them next week._

_Remus is glad that Sirius was able to convince his parents, it’s been almost three weeks since the Marauders last saw each other, and the summers always hit them hard after waking up and going to sleep in the same room for a school year._

_However, as they see Sirius’s battered shape, they both sober up. Sirius looks like he’s been through hell and back._

_He looks pale as he sways on his feet. There is a gash on the side of his neck, running from his chin to his collarbone. It’s not bleeding anymore, and it looks like it’s scabbing, which surprises Remus since Sirius has always been good at healing scars. He is the one that fixes his cuts and gashes after transforming._

_There is also a smaller bruise on his cheek, very vaguely resembling a hand. He puts his little bag down, filled to the brim, and slowly says “Hi,” with his crooked voice._

_They stand there just for another second, still as statues and Remus is the first one to leap forward to the boy as his knees give up. “What happened?”_

_They carry him to the little couch inside as Euphemia hastily runs diagnostics, her face stricken with shock. Sirius is neither awake nor unconscious but his eyes are closed as he lays there, still as death._

_Mrs. Potter pats him around, trying to make sure he is okay. He doesn’t look okay but they all know he won’t tell them anything. She warily patches the gash up and takes a deep breath as she realizes it’s not as deep as it seems._

_Sirius looks so exhausted that he doesn’t even move until James intervenes and takes him from his mother’s hands. His legs are still wobbly, so Remus places a hand on his back gently as they climb the stairs. He leans into the hand without a word._

_They walk back to James’s room, and Sirius is still silent. “I’m going to run the bath, and get something to eat for you. Right, Padfoot?” James asks apprehensively, and bolts out of the room before Sirius can refuse._

_He looks like he will pass out, so Remus hastily leads him to James’s bed. His shoulders are slumped and his skin looks gray as he sits there, eyes fixated on the floor._

_“Let me look at your scar, will you?” says Remus softly. He doesn’t know where the line between treating him like a wounded bird and just helping him lies, and he is afraid he will offend him but Sirius calmly nods._

_“What happened?” he says one more time as he ransacks his rucksack, trying to find his little phial of dittany._

_“We argued,” replies Sirius briefly. “He jinxed me,” he continues, pointing at the gash on his throat. Remus swallows his words and doesn’t remark on how close it is to his vein, and how easy it could drain him of all his blood in seconds. He doesn’t remark on how he knows this isn’t the first time and it isn’t his only scar._

_“I needed to be Padfoot and ran out of my window. I didn’t have time to heal these,” he says. Euphemia patched him up nicely, but Remus thinks it’s a miracle he came here with his open wounds._

_“Luckily,” remarks Remus, “I carry some salve with me all the time. I happen to get injured a lot.” It’s a habit he caught from Madam Pomfrey, he carries little vials of dittany and painkillers with him everywhere._

_His half grin appears on his face, and his voice becomes its usual sardonic version again. “Why is that now?”_

_“Bloody clumsy, I am,” replies Remus, and throws his head back to show the long, white mark left from a wound on his neck. “I just keep tripping on things.”_

_Sirius points to his own gash, “We’re matching now,”_

_“Looks better on me,” shrugs Remus. “Don’t sweat it too much, though.”_

_“Bastard,” Sirius whispers as he smacks him slowly on the shoulder. As Remus puts some dittany on the cleaned gash, James comes in with a tray of food._

_“Girls are going to love it,” James says, pointing his ching at Sirius’s throat. “You can tell them you got it from fighting a dragon or something.”_

_“He could as well be one,” he mutters under his breath referring to his father, and his expression grows serious again. “I need somewhere to stay,” he says._

_“You have somewhere to stay,” repeats James, swinging his arms around, pointing to the house._

_“No James,” he says, trying to clarify, “I’m not ever going back there.”_

_“Then it’s good that we have this house with about four spare rooms laying around.”_

_“I can’t ask you this,” Sirius protests. “And your parents…”_

_“Oh, sod off, Sirius, they might as well call you their son, you know it.”_

_They silently eat until Sirius pulls up his rucksack to his lap, and takes a bottle out. It’s an intricate crystal bottle filled with a swift, orange liquid. The hand-written calligraphy label reads Firewhisky, The Original, 1877. “I thought that if I was leaving for good,” he shrugs “I might as well do some damage.”_

_“Merlin,” whispers James, that thing is more expensive than he would ever like to think. Walburga and Orion will have a jolly time when they figure out where the missing bottle is. Remus is concerned about him drinking while still looking so sickly and fragile but he doesn’t say anything._

_They pour each other shots and down them with sour faces. Remus thinks it wouldn’t affect him so much after all the potions he takes for lycanthropy, but the burning sensation in his gut proves him wrong._

_It’s not the first time they drink, every year some older students have parties before leaving, and Sirius and James being as well-liked and popular as they are, are always invited. They all had some very cheap wine and beer on those nights, but Remus doesn’t really remember ever feeling like this._

_He feels like he is floating in the air, his steps lighter than a fairy’s. He falls down quite a bit too and the whole room shakes with their roaring laughter every time he trips on his own feet._

_They drink until they forget everything. Just as the night becomes the day, they lay on the ground on James’s terrace, and watch the sky. The lights coming from the sun feel so infinite, so endless like their memories and their youth as if they could reach to the sky and hold it._

*

Remus comes back to consciousness as if he’s waking up from a nap. He feels strong and rested like he’s been sleeping for days. His eyes open cautiously like a baby’s, and he realizes one side of his face is bandaged, he can’t open his left eye.

He takes a shaky breath and tries to examine his own body. There is a general sense of exhaustion, but nothing seems to be damaged. He tries to refresh his memory.

My name is Remus Lupin, he starts as always. The war is over. I am safe. 

He tries to remember the last moments of his consciousness, and barely thinks of the feeling of wood on his skin as he crawled out of the box. He is on something softer now, he can’t turn his head around to see, but he can feel the soft mattress under him.

The lights outside are faded, the day slowly becoming the night. He must have been sleeping for more than twelve hours. He has to go, he has to get up and go to Harry.

There is a fire crackling on the side, and he tries to lift himself with his elbows. As the springs of the mattress squeak with his movement, a blurry figure jumps up from the armchair next to him.

“Remus,” a voice calls his name.

He turns his head bit by bit to finally see the figure standing there. As he stays still for a while, the blurry lines become sharp and outline the details of Sirius Black’s handsome, well-defined face and raven black hair, alive and well, standing just in front of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Happy belated birthday to Moony, we're celebrating with some flashbacks. Hopefully, the next chapter will be up sometime this week and any criticism/feedback is welcome as always!


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